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...? Ok... I was about to say this is a great fic and all that halabaloo, but oh well I guess.

I have:
Platinum
Heartgold
White
Black
Rumble Blast
White 2

I used to liek mudkipz, then I took an arrow in the knee. However the arrow turned out to be a seaking. It yelled "F*** yeah" so I screamed "FUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!". The seaking's face became that of a troll while mine became forever alone. The situation was super effective.

I'm really glad that this is not dead. Shortly before I became a member of the forums, I found the link to the old version of this fic.
I read the entire thing in three days, and I was not disappointed in the slightest, until near the last page when the story cut off.

I was pleasently suprised when you posted this new version with the promise of renewed continuence. I can see where the improvements were added or revised and it looks much better than it did before.
And I applaude you for finding the time, no matter how little, to continue a fic other authors in your position would have long forgotton. So, my deepest thanks for continuing this wonderful piece of fiction.

...? Ok... I was about to say this is a great fic and all that halabaloo, but oh well I guess.

Hm? You say that sounding disappointed as if I had just said I was going to quit. :S The next chapter is coming very soon (for real this time.) I spent all yesterday writing it.

Originally Posted by knightfall

I'm really glad that this is not dead. Shortly before I became a member of the forums, I found the link to the old version of this fic.
I read the entire thing in three days, and I was not disappointed in the slightest, until near the last page when the story cut off.

I was pleasently suprised when you posted this new version with the promise of renewed continuence. I can see where the improvements were added or revised and it looks much better than it did before.
And I applaude you for finding the time, no matter how little, to continue a fic other authors in your position would have long forgotton. So, my deepest thanks for continuing this wonderful piece of fiction.

Oh wow, how did you ever find the old one? :O It's always great to hear from someone who read the old version of the fic, and I hope to make the new one consistently much better, more interesting, and just generally more entertaining than the old one. It also helps that I actually know how the fic ends now.

Oh yeah, that's right. I never posted that...

For anyone who read the old version, the biggest reason I quit on that one is because I had no idea how the fic would end, and therefore got stuck on book 2. I know for a fact that will not happen this time because I actually know how the fic ends now. 100% for real. I was walking home from class one day a few months ago and then it hit me. It was so perfect, so obvious, it fit together with everything I already knew about the plot. I cannot. Freaking. Wait. To get to the end of the fic now. And now that I'm out of college, it's a very real possibility.

I'll just say this. Mew. Holy crap, Mew. I never knew she held the entire plot in her paws. And she doesn't even know it. *Author spazz.*

But yeah, Chapter 3 should be up later tonight or tomorrow, and then I'll be back to a semi-regular update schedule. This chapter...I'm not totally confident in its quality, but it is SO MUCH BETTER THAN LAST TIME AUGH. Not even joking. Not even in the author-who-always-scoffs-at-their-old-work way. It really just kicks the pants off the old chapter. And in the end, that's all I really want.

Oh yeah! And what do you guys think of my new banner? I loved my old one to death (and Chesh making it for me out of the blue was the nicest thing ever!) but the new forum sig rules meant I wanted to take advantage of the larger image sizes allowed now. While I was making it, I randomly decided to try the Skyward Sword art style. *Shrug.*

See you guys with the new chappie soon!

~Chibi~

Ever wondered what would happen if humans had the power to overthrow the Legendaries? To either use them for their own ends, or eliminate them altogether? One thing is for certain...the balance between human and Legendary is unstable.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8/30/12: CHAPTER 7: “Into the Fire” POSTED!!!
Chapter 8 progress: 9/12 pages

Oh, I misread... I thought you were going to put this on a really long haitus or something. Nevermind...

I cant wait for your next chapter as I have never heard of this fic and have no idea what will happen.

I have:
Platinum
Heartgold
White
Black
Rumble Blast
White 2

I used to liek mudkipz, then I took an arrow in the knee. However the arrow turned out to be a seaking. It yelled "F*** yeah" so I screamed "FUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!". The seaking's face became that of a troll while mine became forever alone. The situation was super effective.

Woooohooooo. You're back. I was actually wondering for the last few weeks where you drifted off. Great to see that you're back AND with the plot firmly in mind (or only the end). Now if only I can do the same thing for mine; except mine is in reverse. Know the end, but not the middle. Anyway, can't wait to read the next and future chapters.

@Septic Scepti1e: Hey, don’t worry! Not knowing the middle is nowhere near as bad as not knowing the end. I’ve had a lot of discussions about this with a writer friend of mine, and we realized that knowing the end is really the single best way to ensure that you’re able to get through a story.

Alrighty then, it’s that time! And stop the presses, Chibi actually posted a chapter when she said she would!!! Aaand…it was after a long hiatus so it doesn’t count…okay… Be sure to point out any repetitive wording, because I'm sure there's a ton of it that I didn't catch (that's what happens when you write a chapter completely out of order.

And I apologize in advance for Spencer…well…being Spencer.

~Chapter 3: Clash of the Experiments~

We didn’t even get a chance to move. The Pikachu immediately took off bounding down the crates and streaked across the steel floor like a bullet, cutting off Razors with a string of lightning. The mantis darted out of the way at the last second and immediately whirled around to slice at the other experiment, only to find that it was now out of reach. Both combatants raced around with such blazing speed, narrowly avoiding the other, that it was almost impossible to follow the action.

I stood there blankly, unable to believe our luck. The Pikachu was willing to fight Tyson that fiercely…even if it wasn’t actually trying to help us. Just minutes ago, it had seemed like we’d be better off if the Pikachu was taken out of the fight, but now I wasn’t so sure. If the Pikachu was able to defeat Tyson…

“Scyythaaar!” Razors cried, slicing boxes in two. In its rush to attack the Pikachu, it was shredding through everything in its path. The electric rat bounded away just as the Scyther slashed apart the crate it had been standing on, sending a wave of debris flying toward us.

“Whoa! We’d better hide behind here, quick,” Spencer called out, ducking into a corner behind a mound of crates. “You know, if we want to keep our heads and all.”

“What should we do?” I asked, trying not to sound too panicked.

“Er…I was actually hoping you’d have a plan…” he said sheepishly.

Great, so both of us were relying on the other, who was equally clueless.

“Ugh, what does it matter?!” Rudy exclaimed. “We’re not gonna get anywhere by just hiding!” Before I could protest, he pulled out a pair of Poké Balls and opened them, allowing both of his Pokémon to appear before us. I wasn’t surprised to see the familiar black firedog taking shape, or her subsequent attempt to tackle me. What caught me off-guard was the small, bright blue turtle now standing next to us—not that I really had time to question what the heck he was doing with a Squirtle.

“Oh hey, you should probably take this,” Rudy said, handing me a Poké Ball unexpectedly. “I had to put Swift in a ball before sneaking on board, or else just leave him outside.”

“This is Swift’s Poké Ball?” I asked, looking down at it in surprise.

“Well, yeah—it can’t be used on any other Pokémon now so you might as well take it,” Rudy explained. “Now, come on! We’ve got to battle our way out of this!”

“What are we supposed to do?” I asked, throwing my arms in the air out of frustration. “We’ll just end up getting our Pokémon killed! We’ve got to leave this to Typhlosion, okay?”

Rudy paused, slowly gaining a look on his face as if the thought of losing the battle honestly hadn’t occurred to him. He turned away sharply, clenching his fists in frustration. It was weird seeing him so determined to do something, even in a situation like this. It might not have been the smartest idea, but still…

I noticed Spencer duck around the corner, motioning to Typhlosion, who leapt forward to get into an attack position where it would still be concealed amongst the blackened remains of boxes that now littered the makeshift battlefield. And then all of a sudden, I felt a tugging on my leg and looked down to see Firestorm standing alongside me. I was hit with a twinge of guilt—I had forgotten he was even here.

“Yeah? What is it?” I asked him

He didn’t seem to know how to say it. He kept glancing up at me, then towards the raging battle… I couldn’t help noticing the conviction in his expression.

“What, you want to help? No, no no no, that’s not—I mean, it’s great if you want to help and all, but that’s a bad idea, trust me. You wouldn’t stand a…well, they’re too strong; I don’t think we should get in their way.”

Firestorm looked down and nodded vaguely. So now even he wanted to help in some small way. I wasn’t the only useless one here, but I was the only one who had just given up on being able to do anything. That realization was aggravating.

Another blast of lightning dragged my attention back to the ongoing battle, where Tyson was barking orders constantly to his Pokémon, which couldn’t seem to land a hit on the Pikachu.

“Stupid experiment,” Tyson spat. “I don’t have time to wait for it to wear itself down. Really wish I was allowed to kill that thing, after all it’s put me through.”

The Pikachu, however, was quickly starting to wear out. It sparked uncontrollably and gasped for breath, struggling to stay in the fight. The fire was now all but gone from its face; it almost looked…desperate. It was a strange contrast to the way it had looked just minutes earlier, and I couldn’t help feeling a sudden twinge of pity. It had been raised as a lab specimen before finally being disregarded as a failure. Was this mad blitz just out of trying to get free?

The Scyther continued to hack away mercilessly, responding instantly to Tyson’s every command with an amount of precision that was almost scary. And then a sudden burst of flames shot toward Razors! The mantis was stuck head-on by the blaze, recoiling backward in pain. Yes! Typhlosion had landed a direct hit! There was no way the Scyther could withstand that…but even as I watched, it stood up and turned sharply in Typhlosion’s direction, preparing to leap at it.

“No, damn it, ignore them!” Tyson shouted, lunging out of the way of a lightning burst that surged toward him the second Razors had let down his guard. The experimental Scyther obeyed instantly and pressed the attack against the Pikachu once more, while its trainer pulled out two more black Poké Balls.

Spencer clenched his fist. “Well, crap. I thought that would be, well…super effective.”

“I…I don’t get it…how did it withstand an attack like that? I thought Scyther were weak to fire,” I muttered, still staring in shock.

“We’re up against freaking hybrids, what did you expect?” Rudy exclaimed like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

With that attack’s failure, there wasn’t much else we could do while still hiding back behind the wall of supplies. I heard Tyson yell, “Afraid to come out from your little hidey hole? That’s fine by me, Razors isn’t my only experiment!” followed by the sound of him opening the other two Poké Balls, but then—

Lightning flew wild. The Pikachu let out a cry and sent waves of electricity flying all around—it didn’t seem to appreciate the other experiments’ arrival. Seizing the chance, Razors streaked toward it, blades flashing—but then suddenly Typhlosion took the opportunity to shoot another spurt of burning flame at Razors. The Scyther stopped just short of slicing the Pikachu to attempt to avoid the Flamethrower attack.

The Pikachu turned and refocused its attention on Razors and finally was able to hit the Scyther with all its power. Caught in the middle, Razors was struck by both the fire and lightning, despite its incredible speed.

Tyson pulled out the Scyther’s Poké Ball and recalled it, swearing again before directing his other experiments to refocus their attention on the Pikachu now that Razors was down. I hadn’t even really paid any attention to them until this point, having been occupied with the rest of the chaos going on. I caught sight of the Pikachu hammering away at a Rhydon with its tail, which gave an oddly metallic clang with each strike. The rock-armored beast had its arms out in a defensive position, looking like it could endure the hits all day, while a spiky brown blur shot around the scene, landing small hits on the Pikachu that seemed to be adding up quickly.

“So, strong enough to take down my best Pokémon?” Tyson called out. “You’re more of a nuisance that I originally gave you credit for.”

“Razors was your best guy? Awesome, that means we’re in charge now,” Spencer said, standing up. “Tell the pilot to land this thing. Anywhere is fine; we’re not picky about the location.”

That pretty much sent Tyson over the edge. “What the hell are you even doing here?!” he roared. “I don’t have time to take this crap from you!”

I glanced over at Spencer just in time to see his eyes widen suddenly, and then found myself shoved out of the way as he lunged back behind our hiding spot in a panic; at the same time, a long bang filled the area. Had—had Tyson just—?

“He shot at me?” Spencer blurted out, picking himself up off the ground and looking completely floored. I couldn’t do anything but stare back. “He actually shot at me. I mean, I shouldn’t be surprised, but…yeah, I…I wasn’t ready for that. Er…Typhlosion, stay behind cover and only use your long-range moves,” he added distractedly.

The spiky brown blur instantly ceased its battle with the Pikachu, and in that second I finally got a chance to identify it as a shaggy furred rat, which bared its teeth at us before shooting forward, again too fast to see. He was using a Raticate? And for that matter, how the heck was it so fast?! Before I had even finished that thought, it had cleared the distance between us before getting deflected by Typhlosion, who had curled into a ball of flames and collided with it head on. With that, it would be impossible for the Raticate to get any hits on the fire beast without suffering a Flame Wheel in return. But what could it do once the experiment targeted us instead?!

Spencer seemed to realize this at the same time I did. “Backup, backup, definitely time for backup,” he muttered quickly, fumbling with the Poké Balls on his belt. He grabbed the first two he could get his hands on and opened them. His first Pokémon, an Electabuzz, gave a swish of its striped tail the second it appeared and began swinging its heavy arms in a windmill motion, causing sparks to leap off the prongs on its head. Alongside it stood a Pokémon I couldn’t recognize off the top of my head—a gray wolf with long capes of black fur running down its back. Its yellowish eyes held a bit of uncertainty, but it crouched defensively, ready to fight just the same.

“I thought you had six Pokémon,” Rudy said, sounding a bit let down.

“We’d be starting one crazy party if I let out all six of my guys. I don’t think the plane can handle that many fighters—this battle’s probably dangerous enough as it is.”

Spencer motioned forward and his two Pokémon got into a defensive position on either side of us, ready to lash out at the experiment if it dared to come close. The Raticate shot forward, recoiling backward when it was faced the ball of fire Typhlosion had surrounded itself in.

And then I caught sight of its eyes, which sent a shiver running through me. They had an eerily blank and soulless look to them, almost like there was nothing there. And come to think of it—the Scyther’s movements had been too fast for me to get a good look at it, but now I could almost swear that it also had that mindless look. What was the deal with these Pokémon?

While I had been staring at the ongoing action, Rudy had taken the opportunity to duck out of the small area of protection Typhlosion could give us, returning almost as quickly and dragging a box by its corner.

“What was that for?” I gasped, surprised at him.

“Well come on, it had just been sitting over there—I’ve been wanting to grab it for the past five minutes or so,” he said, proceeding to dig through its contents.

Really, couldn’t he ever explain anything in a straightforward way? Before I could reply, however, I noticed the “Technical Machine” stamp on the side of the box and realized the obvious usefulness of the box. He was now sifting through a massive pile of discs, each of them designed to teach a different Pokémon move.

“I’m tired of sitting on the sidelines,” Rudy continued, occasionally pulling out a disc and looking it over before throwing it back in the box. “I know my Pokémon wouldn’t stand a chance if they got hit,”—the words sounded painful for him to admit—“but if I use these to give them sweet moves and have them attack from behind cover like Spencer’s doing, they might have a shot.” I had to admit that it was a really good idea. We were completely surrounded by the Rockets’ supplies—using them to our advantage would be a major help.

I noticed Rudy grin widely all of a sudden, pulling out a blue TM. “Dude, Surf—I’ve gotta teach this to Squirtle.” He fumbled with the buttons on the disc’s case, but nothing happened. “Hey…it’s not working.”

“Isn’t Surf a locked move? Like, you can only use it if you’ve registered a certain number of badges?” I wasn’t really sure of it myself, but it sounded right, in any case.

“Tch, well it was worth a shot,” Rudy said, tossing it back into the box before digging through the TMs again. “Hey Jade, bet you’ll be more excited to see this,” he said, holding up a TM with a glossy red case and the words “Series 5: No.38” written on the front. I blinked, unsure of how I was supposed to respond.

“It’s Fire Blast,” he said, pointing out the writing on the side. “Now hurry up and use it on Charmander before I take it and use it on Ebony.” I took it, unable to come up with a reply. It hadn’t even occurred to me that this plan was something I could do too.

At this point, Spencer was glancing back at us to see what we were up to. “Are those TMs?” he said in surprise. His eyes went wide as he grabbed a yellow Series 2 disc from the top of the pile. “I thought they stopped making these! I always wanted to teach Thunderpunch to Typhlosion.” We all jumped suddenly at the sound of the Raticate’s Swift colliding with Electabuzz’s barrier—a startling reminder of the battle that was still raging.

“Er, that is, I’ll use it once there’s a better chance,” Spencer said, laughing nervously before motioning to his Pokémon. “Electabuzz, Thunderpunch; Mightyena, Crunch!”

In the midst of the ongoing battle, only adding to the chaos, the experimental Pikachu had given up on trying to get at Tyson and was now letting loose strings of lightning at anyone that came too close. At this point it almost looked like it couldn’t even hold the electricity in its body anymore. Sparks shot out from its fur as it gasped for breath...come to think of it, each of its attacks had been less powerful than the one before it. It honestly seemed like it had worn itself out solely by running out of power, not by getting hit by its opponents. The Pikachu made one last attempt to jump over the Pokémon and blast them all but came up with nothing but sparks. It fell to the ground and collapsed off to the side of the cargo bay.

I stared at it for a while as the battle raged on behind me. At first the experiment had seemed like our only hope, then more like a violent wild card in the ensuing battle. I couldn’t help sort of feeling bad for it, and what it must have gone through to have ended up like this. Not that whatever I felt for it made any difference but still…

Time seemed to crawl as I cautiously edged toward the experimental Pikachu. I couldn’t quite explain why I was doing it…I just was. Its ears twitched suddenly when I got about five feet away from it. I flinched instinctively, but…it was out of electricity—there wasn’t much it could do to me now. The Pikachu turned toward me with a fierce glare and attempted to generate power for an attack but came up with nothing but sparks.

“What’re you doing?” Rudy said, walking over. “Didn’t you see how crazy and powerful that thing is?”

“It’s out of power,” I said, slightly defensive. “And it’s not like it’s on Tyson’s side or anything. The Rockets just tossed it off as a failure, so we might be able to—”

I honestly hadn’t expected it to pay attention to my protest, but amazingly, it stopped talking and gave me a skeptical glare before saying, slowly and deliberately, “*First of all, I’m a male, not an ‘it.’ And I don’t need your sympathy, human. This is my problem, not yours, so stay out of it.*”

“It’s not like we asked to be involved in this,” I shot back, a little annoyed. I was just trying to help him…and admittedly hoping that he would help us in return.

The Pikachu didn’t reply. In fact, he was mostly ignoring me by now, staring transfixed at the front of the plane with a pained look on his face. “*It’s the only way I can stop them…*” he muttered distantly before pulling himself to his feet and leaping away.

“Wait, come back!” I yelled, but he continued to race forward toward the front of the plane.

I stood there blankly, lost for what to do now. I hoped he knew what he was doing…cause I sure didn’t know what I was doing. It was starting to feel really awkward just standing there and watching the ongoing battle, unable to help at all.

“So…think it’s gonna help us?” Rudy spoke up all of a sudden.

I shrugged. It was all I could really think of to reply.

And then suddenly we were all knocked off our feet and sent crashing into the floor. It took me a while to realize that it felt like the plane had been violently turned in another direction, before somewhat leveling out. Shakily, I tested standing to my feet just in time to get a glance at Tyson storming off to the front of the plane, yelling an incoherent mess of swears. He threw open the cockpit door and was about to rant some more but stopped short.

“Wha…what the—?!”

I couldn’t resist stepping over to get a view of what was going on—the pilot was knocked out on the floor, and the Pikachu was in his seat, rapidly pushing as many buttons as he possibly could.

“Number Nine, get the hell out of here!” Tyson yelled.

The Pikachu glared at him and swore fiercely before letting sparks cover his body. Sparks…if he had charged up even a bit of power in the past few minutes… Tyson realized what this meant at about the same time as I did.

“No, wait!” he yelled, lunging forward and slamming a button with his fist.

Strings of lightning suddenly flew over the control board, involuntarily let loose from the Pikachu’s hands. Showers of sparks filled the cockpit, forcing Tyson to recoil backward, looking infuriated.

“You stupid rat!” Tyson spat. “You almost blew the controls with the plane on manual! We’d all be dead now if I hadn’t switched to autopilot!” The Pikachu showed no reaction and his face seemed blank of emotion.

The Pikachu’s ears twitched at those words. He stared downward with a pained look on his face, then suddenly took off running out of the cockpit.

And then, for whatever reason, it hit me. Had…had he wanted us to crash?

Tyson’s eyes widened instantly. He seemed to realize what was going on the second that I did. “No, damn it, stop that thing now!”

The Pikachu raced past us and continued towards the back of the jet. Without thinking, I ran after him, not even sure what was driving my legs forward.

“No, don’t, please!” I yelled, not knowing what else to do.

He paused all of a sudden. No way…had he actually listened to me?

For some time no one moved. Then, without warning, he shot towards Spencer’s Electabuzz in an instant.

“What is he—?” I gasped.

“Er, Electabuzz, stop it!” Spencer called out confusedly.

The striped beast threw up its arms defensively and let loose a blast of lightning from its palms right in the experiment’s face. The Pikachu didn’t even attempt to dodge—the electricity enveloped him, and he cried out in pain, his arms spread wide. But then, it didn’t look like anything was happening. He just stood there, taking the attack like it was what he’d wanted. Electabuzz looked back at Spencer confusedly and released his hold over the lightning—the rest of the blast seemed to flow into the Pikachu’s body. His eyes snapped open in an instant with newfound intensity, and he took off again.

“Did…did he just absorb the lightning?” I muttered in awe. No one else said anything. None of us knew what to do now. Tyson’s Raticate shot past us in a blur, but even with its insane speed there was no way it could catch up. The Pikachu looked back at us with…almost an apologetic look and drew more energy from within himself than should have been possible. Then with a blinding neon flash, he fired all of his power into one massive lightning bolt and collapsed.

Everything happened so fast—it was hard to process all of it. First lightning, and then an explosion ripping through the back of the plane, causing the air in the plane to rush out the hole and forcefully pulling all of us toward it. Before I could even think about what was going on, Spencer whipped out a Poké Ball to release an icy white seal. Its horn shone with a bright blue light as a wave of water streamed forward from its mouth. The instant the flames burning from the explosion had been doused, the Dewgong fired a glowing beam from its horn that completely sealed the gaping hole with huge, glittering ice crystals.

I stared openmouthed. “That…that was quick thinking.”

“Yeah? It happens sometimes,” Spencer said, rubbing the back of his head before turning to his Dewgong. “Awesome job,” he said, recalling it.

Except…the opening may have been closed, but that didn’t change the fact that the jet was missing an engine. I sprinted over to the window; we were quickly losing altitude. I whirled around, desperately hoping that Tyson actually had some way of making sure we didn’t crash. There had to be a backup plan, right?!

On the other side of the plane, Tyson quickly made his way over to a control panel on the wall that I hadn’t noticed until now, his pace hurried yet controlled, like he had an idea of how to handle this situation. He opened the panel and proceeded to press several of the buttons, his teeth clenched in concentration.

All of a sudden, large rockets on the wings turned on, bursting out jets of stored energy. The plane rocked slightly, but then slowly began to even out, though it was still descending slowly. Tyson gave a sigh of relief before glancing in our direction and sneering.

“Not so hidden anymore, huh…” he commented to himself. His words had a menacing air.

It hit me immediately—after all of the commotion, we weren’t behind cover anymore, and that meant… I turned towards Spencer frantically, but he didn’t seem concerned—why not?! I glanced back at Tyson; he had just pulled out his gun, but then—I couldn’t do anything but stare dumbfounded as Typhlosion leapt out of nowhere and grabbed Tyson in a bear hug, knocking the gun aside in the process.

“What? Just…what?” I said stupidly.

“Hey, that worked even better than I expected,” Spencer said, giving a massive sigh of relief. “It’s always great when that happens, y’know?”

I stared. “How…how did you…?”

“Well I knew we’d never get anywhere with him having a gun and all, so with all the insanity that the Pikachu caused, I told Typhlosion to hide and take him down the first chance he got,”

I couldn’t think of anything to say. I was too shocked by how much the tables had turned in our favor with just that one move.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?! Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with?!” Tyson raged, struggling against Typhlosion’s hold.

Typhlosion flexed his claws threateningly to emphasize the point, letting wave of heat start to shimmer around them. Clenching his teeth, Tyson managed to unclip the Poké Balls from his belt and recall his Pokémon in twin beams of black energy.

“So, how about you tell us if there’s any chance we can land this thing,” Spencer said simply.

Tyson glared. At first it seemed like he wasn’t going to say anything, but after several seconds, he replied, his words extremely slow as if it were painful just talking to us. “The wing rockets are too weak to make it as far as the base where we would have been landing—they don’t run off jet fuel. They’re only for emergencies.”

“Eh, well, the Rocket base didn’t sound fun. Anyways, you should probably figure out if we can land it anywhere else.”

I know I would have flinched if I’d been at the receiving end of the venomous glare that followed. But still…he obviously must have realized that his only chance at surviving also meant saving us as well. Taking a deep breath, he said, “I can slow us down using the emergency control panel here. If I scan the areas ahead of us with my GPS to see if there’s any clearings wide enough within the distance we can make it before we run out of power…we might have a chance at making a rough landing, at least.”

“Alright, sounds like you’ve got it under control. Typhlosion, you be his wingman, m’kay?” Despite Spencer’s bright tone, Typhlosion understood the serious intent behind the request, and released his hold, while still keeping a menacing eye on Tyson.

“And that’s that,” Spencer said rather matter-of-factly, walking back to me and Rudy.

I couldn’t do anything but stare openmouthed, still unable to believe it. “I…you…I can’t figure you out, you know that?” I said, unable to keep from laughing. “That’s it, then. We’ll be miles away from any other Rockets when we land—there’ll be nothing stopping us from getting out of here.” The shock was wearing off and my voice got more and more excited with each passing moment. I just couldn’t believe we’d done it.

We had won. Well, Spencer had, anyway.

“See, Jade?” Rudy said, elbowing me lightly in the side. “Told we’d be able to get out of this.”

I couldn’t help laughing slightly in a relieved sort of way. “You never had to see what the Rockets could really do…but I’m glad.”

Still overwhelmed by the turn of events, I found my way over to the nearest crate that hadn’t been smashed, grateful to finally have a chance to breathe. I lay there for I don’t know how long, the adrenaline dying down and that crushing feeling of certain death finally disappearing. We were going to make it. Now I supposed the only problem was figuring out what to do once we landed.

Eh, I’d worry about it when we landed.

Rudy had gone back to digging through the TM box for more moves to power his Pokémon up. It made me realize that I hadn’t even used the Fire Blast TM on Firestorm. With a glance down at the ground, I saw that the Charmander was still standing alongside me.

“You holding out okay?” I asked.

He nodded. I couldn’t figure out why he’d been basically glued to me throughout the whole ordeal, but in an odd sort of way it felt…reassuring. I realized it had to be the same feeling that trainers had when traveling in dangerous places with their Pokémon by their side.

Only at that point did I remember that I actually had Swift with me too. I grabbed his Poké Ball from my pocket, figuring I might as well let him out. With a flash of light, the Pidgey appeared, ruffling his feathers. That was his first time being in a Poké Ball, so it was probably a weird experience.

I realized I should probably say something. “Uh…Swift, this is Firestorm. Firestorm, Swift.” Lame, but I couldn’t think of anything else at that point. Swift had been with my family since before I’d learned any Pokéspeech, so I’d gotten used to him being more of a pet than someone to talk with. And, well, he’d never been one to talk much anyway.

Despite my apparent failure at figuring out how to hold a normal conversation with Pokémon, Firestorm took it upon himself to start one. “*So how did you get involved in this?*”

I laughed a bit. “Wrong place at the wrong time. Just like you, I guess.”

He nodded softly. “*I’ve had lots of that.*”

I wanted to know more about what his perspective was on everything that had gone on before the Rocket mess, but there didn’t seem to be a delicate way to ask. After a while I just said, “Did…did you even see what caused the fire?”

He hesitated a bit before speaking slowly—I was glad that his words were so meticulous; otherwise I probably would have had a harder time understanding him. “*The others were all running away in a panic…some of them were shouting about the Great Fire Beast. I never saw him though.*”

I looked down, images from the incident still burned into my memory. The entire situation seemed even weirder when looking back on it. “That fire was caused by humans trying to catch Entei. I actually saw it happen, but I couldn’t do anything about it.”

Firestorm looked a bit puzzled at first. “*Catch? I never really thought about Legendaries being catchable like normal Pokémon.*”

To be honest, it was not something that had really crossed my mind before this point either. Sure, every school-age kid in the world had their dream team complete with their favorite Legendary, but that wasn’t something that could ever actually happen. And yet…it had happened. And it would probably happen again, unless…

“You know…I met someone who was trying to stop it. He couldn’t do it on his own, but he was trying to get people to help him,” I said, more thinking aloud than actually hoping for a response.

“*Were you planning to help him?*” a voice chirped, catching me off guard. I had been so focused on the Charmander’s speech that hearing a different form of Pokéspeech was a bit disorienting. I turned toward Swift and was met with a very intent and deliberate expression.

My reply was a bit weak. “I…hadn’t really considered his offer until now. I mean…what could someone like me do to help?”

“*Legendaries shouldn’t be captured,*” the Pidgey replied simply. I couldn’t help looking at him in surprise—where had he gotten that opinion from? The topic of Legendaries had never really come up in my house, barring that two-month or so period I couldn’t stop talking about them after reading about them in social studies.

I couldn’t think of anything to say in response to his adamant reply. I found myself looking away sheepishly. The lull in the conversation suddenly made me aware that I could feel the plane descending quickly. It didn’t seem like we’d been flying for very long, but then, I had lost track of how much time had passed since Spencer had beaten Tyson.

Rudy looked to be spending the time debating over training methods for strengthening his Pokémon. Spencer, meanwhile, was having an amusing discussion with his Pokémon, in which I could tell that he didn’t understand them much, yet it didn’t seem to stop him from responding to everything they said as if a split conversation like that were completely normal. I couldn’t help chuckling a bit at it.

Swift twitched slightly, perking up like something was about to happen. I turned toward him confusedly, about to ask what was wrong. And then I was thrown forward, crashing headlong into the side of a crate and clutching onto it instinctively, screwing my eyes shut and feeling loose items knocked aside during the battle now sliding against me. I could hear shouting and the frantic cries of more Pokémon than I could count. Claws lightly gripped my shoulder and I opened an eye to see Firestorm grabbing hold of me and refusing to let go.

Not more than thirty seconds after it started, the plane grinded to a halt. I would have sunk to the floor in relief if I hadn’t already been on the floor.

“What the heck was that?!” Rudy yelled, shoving a crate aside and standing to his feet.

“He told me to land the plane. I landed it,” Tyson replied coldly, a bit of smugness to his voice. I noticed that he had clipped himself to a safety belt near the emergency control panel. Typhlosion immediately jumped back into position to make sure Tyson still couldn’t pull anything against us, though the latter didn’t seem to care anymore.

“Well I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t think I’ll be flying Rocket Airlines again anytime soon. In any case, I say we get out of here now, and worry about spamming them with bad reviews later,” Spencer said, walking over.

“Where is here, exactly?” I said, glancing around for a window. I spotted one on the far end of the hangar and started walking toward it, but Rudy beat me there. It looked like we had crash-landed on the edge of a forest, with a rocky outcropping not more than twenty yards from the plane.

“Alright, so…for starters how do we get out of the plane?” Rudy asked.

“Well, we could try melting through the ice,” Spencer said, jerking a thumb toward the hole that the Pikachu had caused earlier. “I’ve got two fire-types, so—”

“You have another fire-type?!” Rudy said, looking shocked. “Why didn’t you use it earlier?”

“I didn’t need to?” Spencer said, shrugging as he recalled his Electabuzz and Mightyena and pulled out a different Poké Ball. The flash of light from inside took the form of a huge striped firedog, not much different from Rudy’s Growlithe, though obviously much bigger and more powerful. The Arcanine tossed its head slightly with a bit of a proud look on its face upon seeing the admiration it was receiving; the motion caused its thick, fluffy mane to flow in an almost impossibly graceful way.

“Come on, let’s get outta here,” Spencer said cheerfully, motioning to his Arcanine.

“What are you guys doing?!” Tyson demanded all of a sudden.

“Getting out of here. Why, do you like having us around?” Spencer asked tauntingly.

Tyson clenched his teeth, looking nervous. “You idiots don’t even know where we are. What are you supposed to do, wander around the forest?”

I raised an eyebrow. What was he trying to accomplish…getting us to stay here? How on earth would that even help him, given his situation?

Even weirder was the fact that until we had tried to leave, Tyson had seemed oddly okay with everything that was going on. Earlier he’d needed to try his hardest not to explode with rage. Now he just seemed…impatient.

“You guys?” I said, lowering my voice to a whisper. “Anyone else think it’s weird that Tyson’s not pissed at us anymore?”

“Maybe he found his anger meds?” Spencer said with a weak grin. Rudy and I glanced at each other, then back at Spencer, eyebrows raised.

“Yeah, okay, that was lame,” he said, putting a hand to his forehead. “Anyways, think he’s planning something?”

I couldn’t really tell. He wasn’t really doing anything, although every so often he’d glance down at the small blue handheld that he’d been using as a GPS.

Wait…his GPS.

“Oh crap…that’s not a phone, is it?” I said, my mouth dropping.

Spencer and Rudy looked up at him immediately. Tyson seemed to notice that we were staring at him because he said, “It’s a GPS, idiots,” before going back to fiddling with the buttons.

“Hey Typhlosion, I really need to have what he’s holding. Like, right now,” Spencer called out.

“Oh come on now!” Tyson roared before being promptly tackled by the fire beast. After a few seconds, Typhlosion tossed the blue device to Spencer, who caught it.

“Give that the hell back, what do you need it for?!” Tyson raged at us from under Typhlosion’s hold.

“I don’t think you understand—I just really love GPSs,” Spencer said simply, pressing a button on the device, which had the letters “R-Com” inscribed on the front. Both Rudy and I leaned in to get a look at the screen. A half-finished text message read, “Landed on schedule. Requesting your current location and—”

All three of us looked up at each other incredulously. I glanced over at Tyson to see that he was looking incredibly smug. “I was able to call for backup as soon as I figured out where we’d land. Since we were both converging on the same spot, I bet they’ll be here any second.”

It felt as though the air had been sucked out of the room with that one statement. For several seconds no one said anything. There wasn’t anything to say. I could already feel a hole in my stomach from dread. We had been in the clear. We were going to make it. And then…this.

“Actually!” Spencer exclaimed suddenly. “I just remembered I have somewhere very important to be, so y’know I’m just gonna have to take a rain check on the whole battling Rockets to the death thing, so sorry I can’t make it, very urgent, hope you’ll understand, hey guys you’re invited too, let’s go now, Arcanine!”

On that last word, Arcanine barked out a blazing Flamethrower, instantly bursting clean through the ice at the back of the plane and filling the hangar with steam.

“Alrighty, get on board everyone or we’ll be late for our date with getting-the-frick-out-of-here!” Spencer exclaimed, recalling his other two Pokémon. Rudy nodded sharply, recalling his Pokémon and jumping up onto the firedog’s back. I motioned to Swift to follow us in the air before glancing around my feet and seeing Firestorm standing there looking wary. And then, out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of the experimental Pikachu’s crumpled form, still unconscious from having destroyed the plane’s engine earlier.

It was more of an impulse than anything—I didn’t even know why I was doing it. I dashed over, snatched the Pikachu with my right arm before scooping up Firestorm under my left and throwing a leg over the Arcanine’s back.

I threw a glance back at Spencer, who motioned to Typhlosion, who threw Tyson under a pile of boxes and hurriedly dashed forward on all fours, pausing just enough for Spencer to leap onto its back. That was all I saw before Arcanine sprung out the hole in the ice, landing nimbly on the horizontal stabilizer of the tail before bounding down to the ground.

And then the screeching of tires and what sounded like gunshots filled the air. I couldn’t figure out what was going on anymore. Spencer shouted something as he and Typhlosion jumped through the ice hole, and then I was nearly thrown off as the firedog Rudy and I were riding bolted forward with an impossible rush of speed, apparently trying to avoid something. More yelling, more gunshots, I could see the trees flying by as Arcanine dashed up the side of the rocky ledges alongside the crash site, finally ducking down behind a large rock, closely followed by Typhlosion.

I slid off the Arcanine’s back, feeling slightly numb as I set Firestorm and the Pikachu on the ground. “What…what is going on,” I gasped, still disoriented from the sudden rush of speed and chaos.

“The Rockets were on the other side of the jet,” Spencer managed. “They tried firing at us; couldn’t really get a clear shot, though.”

“What do we do now?!” I panicked.

“I don’t know, I didn’t think they’d be here already!” Spencer exclaimed. “We could just try making a break for it?”

At that moment, the jeeps pulled up and skidded to a stop on our side of the jet, throwing dust into the air. I peeked around the corner of the ledge concealing us to see one of the Rockets riding in the back of the first vehicle jump out in one smooth motion and proceed to look over the damages done to the plane.

“You know, Tyson, when you said the transport jet was gonna crash I never guessed it’d be ‘cause of some random stowaway kids and a prisoner you were supposed to bring to me,” she said, her voice cool and competent. Was she the Executive I was supposed to be interrogated by?

“I—but—don’t go blaming this on me,” Tyson called out. I glanced up to see him now standing on the tail stabilizer, looking bruised and battered. “And why didn’t you bring more backup?! Just a bunch of grunts?” He sounded on the verge of losing control.

“Cleaning up after the mess you made of the jet sounds like grunt work to me,” she replied lazily. “That leaves me stuck taking care of the idiot kids.”

“They’re not just kids,” Tyson said defensively. “One of em’s older than the others and his Pokémon are a match even for my experimen—”

“Tyson, your experiments were never all that amazing anyway,” she cut in, waving a hand dismissively. “I don’t even know why you still bother training them after all the progress that your division’s made on Number Thirty-Six,”

“Tch…better than using regular Pokémon,” Tyson countered back. “And I think you’re forgetting that it’s what I was assigned to do. Of course you wouldn’t know what that’s like ‘cause the second you joined you were—”

“Oh, still going on with that crap about how I was always an Executive, is that it now? I think you should watch what you say there Tyson, unless you’re secure enough in your position to want to pick fights with me.” Tyson flinched and didn’t say anything more.

I really had no idea what they were talking about, and I was especially confused at the fact that the Executive looked like she couldn’t be much older than her late teens. It seemed weird that someone so young could be ranked that highly on Team Rocket.

“Whatever, it doesn’t matter—I’ll deal with them,” she said, turning toward us and walking forward. That was when we got our first real look at her. She had a very hardened and mature look about her, which made me almost completely forget that she was probably younger than most of the other Rockets there. Somehow, before she had even done anything, she just felt more dangerous than the rest.

“Spencer…uh, we need a plan, like, now,” I muttered, overcome with anxiety.

“Gimme a sec…at least they can’t shoot us while we’re back here, right?”

I heard the sound of several Poké Balls being opened and looked back at the Rocket to see “Oh crap, here they come!”

Spencer clenched his teeth, looking completely panicked as he motioned to his two fire Pokémon to get on our other side, so that they could attack our opponents from around the corner before they got here. A fierce snarling suddenly filled the air—it sounded like an Arcanine’s call, but…Spencer’s hadn’t caused it.

I looked around the corner again to see another striped firedog, similar to Spencer’s, but this one had a horrifyingly vicious expression right now, causing Typhlosion and Arcanine to recoil slightly, seemingly losing some of the tension in their muscles.

It took me a second, but then I recognized what it had done. Her Arcanine must have had the Intimidate ability, which cut the strength of any attacker it encountered.

Simultaneous blasts of fire flew down the hill, striking the other Arcanine right in its front. It snarled as it took the assaults, noticeably affected by them despite its natural resistance to fire. But then suddenly flames were scattered everywhere as a tan horse jumped in the way of the blaze, glowing with a fiery sheen—it didn’t seem to even notice that it was being hit. In fact, the flames of its mane and tail only intensified.

“Did that just make it stronger?! Oh crap, it must have Flash Fire. Typhlosion, stop the Flamethrower and use Dig! Arcanine—” And then Spencer’s face lit up like he had just made the best realization of his life. “Dude, I’ve got it! Typhlosion, quick—use Flamethrower on Arcanine!!”

Typhlosion paused its sudden spurt of digging to breathe out a lick of flames at the orange-striped firedog before disappearing underground. The Arcanine seemed empowered by the flames hitting its body, pulling them into itself before glowing with a red aura.

All of his Pokémon got into position upon hearing the commands, his Arcanine already throwing a Fire Blast into the fray, its firepower scarily bright now. But then my eyes lit up when I fully grasped that he had just let out a Pidgeot.

“Wait! You have a Pidgeot! Can’t we just fly out of here?!” I exclaimed, pointing at the massive tawny eagle that had just taken flight over the battlefield.

Spencer paused, smiling weakly. “It’s cool that you think he’s that hardcore, but…yeah, no way can he pull off carrying all three of us.”

“Crap…okay, how about one person rides off on Pidgeot while the others stay here protected by the rest of your Pokémon, and then Pidgeot comes back to get the others?”

“I…guess that could work?” Spencer said, rubbing the back of his head.

And then suddenly at that moment, an earsplitting crack tore the air. A flash of light blinded my eyes—I could barely make out a ridiculously thick bolt of lightning surging through the air, striking right through the Pidgeot before it even got the chance to rain aerial attacks onto the opposition. The long, glossy feathers trailing from its head were singed black instantly, and it let out a pitiful cry before going limp and falling to the ground in an awkward heap. At the bottom of the hill, a Raichu stood, clearly smirking with sparks still leaping off its yellow cheek pouches. It gave a swish of its long, inky-black tail and dashed forward into the fray.

Spencer was staring wide-eyed at what had just happened, his mouth agape. Slowly, he reached down to his Poké Ball belt and recalled Pidgeot in a beam of red light. In that one moment, the real weight of the situation crashed down on me like a bucket of cold water—it had felt like we had a fighting chance to get out of this, but…we really didn’t, did we?

“Yeah, that would have been us if we’d tried flying away,” Rudy pointed out. No one said anything as the implications of what he’d said sunk in.

~End Chapter 3~
In the end, I decided to move the chapter split, both because this chapter was becoming extraordinarily long, and because I felt like this was a decent place to put it (I preferred to end the chapter on a low note rather than a high note.)

I really hope that the course of events in this chapter made sense because it was a NIGHTMARE to sort through. So. Many. Times. Did I run into a situation with three different things happening at once that all had reason that they needed to be described first, and no way to figure out what order everything should happen in.

In other news, I’ve been posting this on forums for 8 years and double spacing was always the most tedious part of preparing chapters for posting. (I use indents in word, not double spacing.) Why did it take me this long to discover you can add line breaks with find/replace???!!!

~Chibi~

Last edited by Chibi Pika; 7th June 2012 at 9:46 PM.

Ever wondered what would happen if humans had the power to overthrow the Legendaries? To either use them for their own ends, or eliminate them altogether? One thing is for certain...the balance between human and Legendary is unstable.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8/30/12: CHAPTER 7: “Into the Fire” POSTED!!!
Chapter 8 progress: 9/12 pages

Wow. New chapter, new banner, and new Avatar. It's more like “stop the world.” So, here's my review but don't tell Dragonfree that this got reviewed quicker than her recent chapter.

Oh, and first review!

Critique first:

The Pikachu immediately took off bounding down the crates to st
reak across the steel floor like a bullet, cutting off the Scyther with a string of lightning.

Not much of a grammatical error but more of a fluency thing, but I think “and streaked” would work much better here than “to streak.” To me, it just reads better, but that is my opinion. Also, as I noticed on my reread, you say “the Pikachu” and just Pikachu too much that it leaves the reader debating whether he is named Pikachu or referred to through his species. The lack of the word the heavily throws this into him being named, especially since Spencer's Pokemon aren't nicknamed which can further the confusion. This makes it hard to tell which you're trying to shoot for.

Like. . . here

In its rush to attack Pikachu, it was destroying everything.

and. . . here

The Scyther stopped just short of slicing Pikachu to attempt to avoid the Flamethrower attack.

He grabbed at the first two he could get his hands on and opened them.

No need for the word “at.”

That was when I noticed. Its eyes were…weird.

I was slightly pulled out here as this seemed too. . . blatant? I don't know. It's just that when I read over this, I feel that there were better ways to begin this. I wish I could be more helpful here.

We all jumped suddenly at the sound of the Raticate’s Swift colliding with Electabuzz’s barrier—a startling reminder of the battle that was still raging on.

While I fall into this trap a lot, the “on” is unneeded here.

It honestly seemed like had worn itself out solely by running out of power, not by getting hit by its opponents.

Missing an “it” maybe.

The Pikachu made one last attempt to jump over the Pokémon and blast them all, but failed.

and

I felt for it made any difference, but still…

and

The Pikachu turned toward me with a fierce glare and attempted to generate power for an attack, but came up with nothing but sparks.

The commas in each of these are unneeded as the second half of the sentences are not their own independent clause.

I just took an Intro to Creative Writing class and my professor mentioned that adjectives and adverbs are easy traps to describing things. At first, I didn't get quite get the meaning behind that, but I think using “lamely” here may be one such example. Try taking it out and see if it reads better, worse, or no different. This may just be me.

I stood there blankly, lost for what to do now.

This reads a little awkwardly. Not sure on how to fix it, though.

No one else said anything. None of us knew what to do now.

Unless you're trying to draw more emphasis on the second sentence, just combine the two with “nor” and remove the “none of us” part. It also adds a bit of alliteration.

He then fired all of his power in the form of a massive neon lightning bolt and collapsed.

“Hey, that worked even better than I expected—cool,” Spencer said, giving a massive sigh of relief.

With the addition of the word “cool,” it conflicts with the sighing in relief in my opinion.

The amount of hatred in the look Tyson gave Spencer was outright scary

Show, don't tell.

I know for a fact that there was another spot where there was a missing word, but I can't seem to find it. Sorry, I told myself at work to remember it, but I didn't. Now for the better part of this review: the awesome parts:

Before I start quoting particular parts of the chapter, I have two things that I want to mention about your writing.

1) I notice that you use a lot of lyrical elements in your writing which in my opinion can be quite hard to incorporate. It's one thing to describe things with pretty imagery, but you take extra steps and add poetic devices which really is quite awesome.

2) For me, I love it when authors do a really good job in describing battles which you are one of those authors. Considering this is a “war fic,” you do a really nice job of describing a battle as I am not confused about who's doing what when there are a dozen of Pokemon and people doing something. So, your description around a battle is awesomely done, and the battle itself is worded nicely. One thing in suggestion though is to not explain the Ability pieces as you already got the message across in your writing. Effective writing of the Abilities or Moves shouldn't need a narrative explanation of the description which you already did well.

Now for the quotes again:

~Chapter 3: Clash of the Experiments~

Love the title.

That pretty much sent Tyson over the edge. “What the hell are you even doing here?!” he roared. “I don’t have time to take this crap from you!”

I glanced over at Spencer just in time to see his eyes widen suddenly, and then found myself shoved out of the way as he lunged back behind our hiding spot in a panic; at the same time, a long bang filled the area. Had—had Tyson just—?

Whoa. Dis just turned srious. Though, why not start with a gun?

“Series 5: No.38” written on the front. I blinked, unsure of how I was supposed to respond.

“It’s Fire Blast,” he said, pointing out the writing on the side. “Now hurry up and use it on Charmander before I take it and use it on Ebony.” I took it, unable to come up with a reply. It hadn’t even occurred to me that this plan was something I could do too.

One thing I was questioning was whether or not you were going to update this to fit Gen 5. Guess you did in a rather cool way too. Series 5. . . might use that in my own writing.

I couldn’t resist stepping over to get a view of what was going on—the pilot was knocked out on the floor, and the Pikachu was in his seat, rapidly pushing as many buttons as he possibly could. In fact, it would have been a pretty hilarious image in any other situation.

Lolololol. Awesome visual here. Now I'm imagining a Pikachu actually flying an airplane. Not just this instance.

The Pikachu glared at him and swore fiercely before letting sparks cover his body. Sparks…if he had charged up even a bit of power in the past few minutes… Tyson realized what this meant at about the same time as I did.

The Pikachu swore? Wonder what it, er, he said. . .

“Hey Rocket guy,” Spencer said. “I think I just won this, so how about you recall your Pokémon to make things easier?”

Does Spencer ever take the situation seriously. Why can't I have that personality? *sigh*

“Alright, sounds like you’ve got it under control. Typhlosion, you be his wingman, m’kay?” Despite Spencer’s bright tone, Typhlosion understood the serious intent behind the request, and released his hold, while still keeping a menacing eye on Tyson.

You just refuse to let me drive the Pokemon-flying-a-plane picture out of my head. Actually, that would make an awesome picture: Pikachu in the pilot's seat and Typhlosion in the co-pilot's.

Tyson clenched his teeth, looking nervous. “You idiots don’t even know where we are. What are you supposed to do, wander around the forest?”

*weighs options* Stay with the Rocket Executive. Get lost in the woods. Hmmmm. I think I'll chance the wild.

“Oh come on now!” Tyson roared before being promptly tackled by the fire beast. After a few seconds, Typhlosion tossed the blue device to Spencer, who caught it.

I love Tyson's personality. Not exactly the brightest, but that also leads to a question. I'm caught between whether this was either supposed to be comical or if it's part of Tyson's personality or both. If it is comedy, it seems forced.

And then suddenly at that moment, an earsplitting crack tore the air. A flash of light blinded my eyes—I could barely make out a ridiculously thick bolt of lightning surging through the air, striking right through the Pidgeot before it even got the chance to rain aerial attacks onto the opposition. The long, glossy feathers trailing from its head were singed black instantly, and it let out a pitiful cry before going limp and falling to the ground in an awkward heap. At the bottom of the hill, a Raichu stood, clearly smirking with sparks still leaping off its yellow cheek pouches.

O,O That is one seriously maniacally evil and powerful Raichu. Hope Pidgeot is OK. A bolt that went through him. That hasn't to be extremely painful.

And, uh, that's it. Now, I hope that I wasn't too blunt in my critique. I also know that I tend to spot grammar and technical problems more so than plot and detail problems. I also want to say that I am not the best critic either, so my suggestions could be out right wrong, so take what you want out of it. Anyway, can't wait to read the following chapters.

Wow. New chapter, new banner, and new Avatar. It's more like “stop the world.”

These new Nobunaga avatars are too amazing, I want them all. xD I need to like, switch avatars every day now.

Originally Posted by Septic Scepti1e

Not much of a grammatical error but more of a fluency thing, but I think “and streaked” would work much better here than “to streak.” To me, it just reads better, but that is my opinion. Also, as I noticed on my reread, you say “the Pikachu” and just Pikachu too much that it leaves the reader debating whether he is named Pikachu or referred to through his species. The lack of the word the heavily throws this into him being named, especially since Spencer's Pokemon aren't nicknamed which can further the confusion. This makes it hard to tell which you're trying to shoot for.

Ahh...yeah, that's one of those consistency things... See, originally, the Pikachu had been named already, but I decided to cut that into a later chapter. But then I decided that I'd just have her call him "Pikachu" after that bit she talked to him briefly, but then scrapped that. So now it's just plain all over the place and ought to be fixed. xP

Originally Posted by Septic Scepti1e

I just took an Intro to Creative Writing class and my professor mentioned that adjectives and adverbs are easy traps to describing things. At first, I didn't get quite get the meaning behind that, but I think using “lamely” here may be one such example. Try taking it out and see if it reads better, worse, or no different. This may just be me.

Hmm, an interesting point. Not sure how I'd convey the sort of "saying something probably pointless and feeling embarrassed for it" feeling without it, but now that I just said it, I guess there would be other ways of describing it, though maybe less concise. Hmm.

Originally Posted by Septic Scepti1e

Unless you're trying to draw more emphasis on the second sentence, just combine the two with “nor” and remove the “none of us” part. It also adds a bit of alliteration.

Hrm. I feel like "nor" would seem odd in first person, like the sort of sentence structure that no one would actually have in their head. But the way it is right now does sort of sound like repetition for emphasis, so I'll have to think on it.

Derp. I think that was me trying to use Jade's narration more, in a spot where I didn't really need to. Funny, I never had that problem in older revisions (plenty of other problems though, haha.)

Originally Posted by Septic Scepti1e

1) I notice that you use a lot of lyrical elements in your writing which in my opinion can be quite hard to incorporate. It's one thing to describe things with pretty imagery, but you take extra steps and add poetic devices which really is quite awesome.

Really? I really wouldn't have known I was doing it if you hadn't pointed it out. ^^;

Originally Posted by Septic Scepti1e

2) For me, I love it when authors do a really good job in describing battles which you are one of those authors. Considering this is a “war fic,” you do a really nice job of describing a battle as I am not confused about who's doing what when there are a dozen of Pokemon and people doing something. So, your description around a battle is awesomely done, and the battle itself is worded nicely. One thing in suggestion though is to not explain the Ability pieces as you already got the message across in your writing. Effective writing of the Abilities or Moves shouldn't need a narrative explanation of the description which you already did well.

Yay. I've had lots of practice at that from the huge Legendary melees later in the fic. And I'll keep that in mind with the abilities. Flash Fire can afford to have the explanation cut, but I wasn't sure if Intimidate was okay without it (or else it might have just been using Scary Face or something.)

Originally Posted by Septic Scepti1e

Whoa. Dis just turned srious. Though, why not start with a gun?

Remember when I said this chapter was hard to coordinate? That's why. Basically, I was trying to convey throughout the whole chapter that that was really the first time he could have had a clear shot at any of them. Moving the bit with the gun to earlier in the chapter messed up the flow, so that was the only part I could get it to fit--having Spencer leave their hiding spot thinking it was safe with Razor KO'd.

Originally Posted by Septic Scepti1e

One thing I was questioning was whether or not you were going to update this to fit Gen 5. Guess you did in a rather cool way too. Series 5. . . might use that in my own writing.

Heh. Glad you noticed that. I made it a series 5 disc for a specific reason (Even though Fire Blast has been in many Gens.)

Originally Posted by Septic Scepti1e

I love Tyson's personality. Not exactly the brightest, but that also leads to a question. I'm caught between whether this was either supposed to be comical or if it's part of Tyson's personality or both. If it is comedy, it seems forced.

Hm, well I was kind of going for both there. Since Tyson is both very hotheaded and spent the entire chapter desperately trying to get control of the situation to not seem incompetent in front of the higher-ups. (That's one thing: he is an Executive, just a low-ranked one, and screwing up in a position of responsibility isn't the best thing to do.) Then I just found the idea of him being hopelessly frustrated, unable to do anything about it, and pushed around to no end to being vaguely amusing. :P

Originally Posted by Septic Scepti1e

O,O That is one seriously maniacally evil and powerful Raichu. Hope Pidgeot is OK. A bolt that went through him. That hasn't to be extremely painful.

Heh. That Raichu. Oh man that Raichu. You haven't seen the last of him.

Interestingly, I debated whether or not to make it an OHKO. OHKO's happen all the time in-game, but rarely in the anime, which is the battle style I mainly follow in writing. Pokemon frequently take super effective hits and keep going, which they could never do in-game. So I decided to do a damage calculation and half it. In-game Raichu would have done 220% damage there. So OHKO it was. x3

Originally Posted by Septic Scepti1e

And, uh, that's it. Now, I hope that I wasn't too blunt in my critique. I also know that I tend to spot grammar and technical problems more so than plot and detail problems. I also want to say that I am not the best critic either, so my suggestions could be out right wrong, so take what you want out of it. Anyway, can't wait to read the following chapters.

Thanks, it's helpful having the input.

Now to run off and fix things! Oh yeah, and I still need to update chapter 2 with all the edits I made after Dragonfree's review! Busy~!

~Chibi~

Last edited by Chibi Pika; 10th May 2012 at 4:25 AM.

Ever wondered what would happen if humans had the power to overthrow the Legendaries? To either use them for their own ends, or eliminate them altogether? One thing is for certain...the balance between human and Legendary is unstable.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8/30/12: CHAPTER 7: “Into the Fire” POSTED!!!
Chapter 8 progress: 9/12 pages

Yay new chap! I know the Pikachu's name... I found the old version!!!! Haha! It wasnt too bad... hm.

I have:
Platinum
Heartgold
White
Black
Rumble Blast
White 2

I used to liek mudkipz, then I took an arrow in the knee. However the arrow turned out to be a seaking. It yelled "F*** yeah" so I screamed "FUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!". The seaking's face became that of a troll while mine became forever alone. The situation was super effective.

For revising a fic eleven times shows dedication and a constant strive to improve and for that I applaud you. When I first saw the title, I had a feeling that I would be expecting a lot of dark action and legendary pokemon. Chronicles isn't a very much used up work, so I thought the title had that cliche vibe that hooks readers in.

The opening hooked me with the descriptions and reminded me of stories that use ancient legendary tales. I don't remember if I read the ending or any of the previous revisions of the chapter, although I have to say I like how you end the chapters because in something I noticed in chapter one, in my opinion it was a borderline cliffhanger.

I think the scenes in each chapter make the story flow really well. Charmander's situations and characteristics interested me because I quickly felt for him because of how he gets injured in the first chapter.

I like how you've mixed original characters in with Team Rocket for a reason I'm not so sure of other than I find it interesting to see how people's original characters react around canon characters.

The plot is very ambitious and I think it's wonderfully executed because your strong imagery in your writing is right up my street. It has a mixture of techniques and spelling and grammar feel fine to me. I also thought the dialogue flowed really easy and the use of punctuation emphasised on the emotions and the scenes. The huge leghth makes the character development a lot more visible.

I think the writing techniques you used go well with the pace. I also like how you've made lots of effort to present the story because it shows that you really care about the story and you want us to care about your characters. Because of that I found it very easy to enjoy the chapters so far and keep an eye out on the fic.

Yay new chap! I know the Pikachu's name... I found the old version!!!! Haha! It wasnt too bad... hm.

Haha, oh no, you found the old one too. xD All things considered, it wasn't too bad (it was most recently revised when I was 17), but I just needed to change too many things in order to progress the plot, which is why I started over so I wouldn't have to keep doing retcons.

Originally Posted by C.Gholy

For revising a fic eleven times shows dedication and a constant strive to improve and for that I applaud you. When I first saw the title, I had a feeling that I would be expecting a lot of dark action and legendary pokemon. Chronicles isn't a very much used up work, so I thought the title had that cliche vibe that hooks readers in.

Heh, I actually don't remember my thought process when coming up with the title of this fic. It was just sort of along the lines of "chronicles is a cool word." xP By now I'm way too attached to it, heh. And there will definitely be a lot of dark action and Legendary Pokemon in the chapters to come. Thank you very much for your comments, by the way. I'm glad you felt that everything came together effectively, because I've been hoping this would be the revision where I finally got the plot, characters, and writing to serve the story the way I had always wanted.

Chapter 4 is coming along great, everyone. I should be able to have it out by the end of the week. Also, I'm currently working on artwork for Spencer, so that should be coming soon as well. Can't wait to get done with the plane subplot, because then I can really get into the meat of the story.

~Chibi~

Ever wondered what would happen if humans had the power to overthrow the Legendaries? To either use them for their own ends, or eliminate them altogether? One thing is for certain...the balance between human and Legendary is unstable.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8/30/12: CHAPTER 7: “Into the Fire” POSTED!!!
Chapter 8 progress: 9/12 pages

There wasn’t even much point in having passed the Handling exam—what good would a license do me now?

I'm not entirely sure what a license is referring to in this paragraph because you didn't mention it at all before in the paragraph. Are you referring to the fact that she can't go anywhere because her parents won't let her (like earlier in the chapter) or that she doesn't really care about going on the journey (like earlier in the paragraph)?

Then again…weren’t there a lot of Fire Pokémon living in this area? Fires had to be pretty common.

I feel nitpicky saying this, but I disagree with there being fire types west of viridian. Ponyta maybe.

Swift gave a low string of chirps. This time they had meaning, and I had taken enough classes on Pokémon language to make out the words: “*It’s bad…you should see.*”

I feel like the way you set up this paragraph that you should make the sentence in the quotations less discernable, perhaps like "bad...look." You make it sound like she doesn't have very much experience yet and should only be making out the meaning, not the individual words.

He gave me a very serious look. “Are you interested in helping stop Team Rocket’s Legendary project? Would you be willing to fight them?”

This is an excelent shift in tone of the story, where the reader realizes that jade can no longer step away from what she has just witnessed. The quote can seem a bit forced if you're not ready for it, but looking back on the conversation it's quite obvious this is an interview and he was headed in this direction from the start.

Chapter 2

The driver parked the jeep in an area to the side, and the Rockets all exited the vehicle. I watched as the driver walked off toward a side of the hangar, where a heavy computerized door stood. He pulled a card out of his pocked and touched it to the scanner, unlocking it before entering what looked like an office hallway.

I couldn’t afford to think like that…I wasn’t going to die. I was going to figure a way out of this. Expect…there was no way out. I was stuck in an endless loop of feeling determined one minute and then hopeless the next.

“Well, it’s your lucky day,” he said with a snide grin as he opened the back hatch. “If you keep your head down and answer the Executives’ questions, they might not mind letting you go alive after all, though I’m not offering any guarantees.”

I tend to agree with Agent Tectonic on the fact that it seems a little weird that a pretty mean team rocket member is okay with keeping her alive after she's outlived her usefulness. I can see them being willing to let Jade go after watching them catch entei, if they tied her up but let her go after they caught entei and told her not to repeat anything. She would probably be too scared to defy the order, and it's not like too many people would believe her. After all, the executive did make that point earlier before Tyson mentioned Jade had been conversing with Striker. (I forgot his name)

Chapter 3

We didn’t even get a chance to move. The Pikachu immediately took off bounding down the crates and streaked across the steel floor like a bullet, cutting off the Scyther with a string of lightning. Razors darted out of the way at the last second and immediately whirled around to slice at the other experiment, only to find that it was now out of reach. Both combatants raced around with such blazing speed, narrowly avoiding the other, that it was almost impossible to follow the action.

If you're going to call the pikachu 'the Pikachu,' then call Razors 'the Scyther.' The fact that you're referring to razors in proper noun form suggests that Jade and we as readers are already familiar with the character, which we are not.

He clapped a hand to his forehead. “Yeah, about that…I should have known that the League registration place would be out of Charmander, so—hey, don’t give me that look, I didn’t want to wait, okay?” I had already needed to clap a hand to my mouth to keep from laughing out loud at his impatience. It suddenly made sense that he had been so jealous of my finding a Charmander.

I couldn’t resist stepping over to get a view of what was going on—the pilot was knocked out on the floor, and the Pikachu was in his seat, rapidly pushing as many buttons as he possibly could. In fact, it would have been a pretty hilarious image in any other situation.

These two situations contradict in tone. It's not the right situation for Jade to laugh about Rudy getting a squirtle. Perhaps when they make it out alive and safe they can collapse laughing and Jade can make the point of Rudy not having a fire starter.

“Well, yeah—it’s marked with him now, so I can’t use it,” Rudy explained. “Now, come on! We’ve got to battle our way out of this!”

What does this mean?

“No, damn it, ignore them!” Tyson shouted, lunging out of the way of a lightning burst that surged toward him the second Razors had let down his guard. The experimental Scyther obeyed instantly and pressed the attack against the Pikachu once more, while its trainer pulled out two more black Poké Balls.

If he has multiple pokemon, wouldn't it make sense for him to send one of them to fend off the typhlosion while the rest are occupied by the pkachu?

In charging up power while still using the controls, the Pikachu ended up automatically discharging his energy into the plane. A wave of sparks shot out of the control panel, and all the screens were scrambled.

I can see what you mean by piecing together blocks to form chapters. I know you can make a more coherent sentence than that. Actually edit both of those sentences by removing the need for commas, it'll make the sentences more linear and coherent.

“The power for the emergency rockets is separate from the rest of the plane. It wasn’t locked up by the rat’s electricity,” Tyson explained. “Now then…you were a bit of a help there kid, but I’m still sick of you being here…” His voice had a menacing air.

From what I've seen of Tyson so far, he is not the kind of person to explain rocket plane secrets and compliment a prisoner after a deadly situation corrects itself. He would without warning try to get the situation back in his control before his opposition can. He's not the super villain monologue type.

I couldn’t really tell. He wasn’t really doing anything, although every so often he’d glance down at the small blue handheld that he’d been using as a GPS.

This seems really obvious and he could have done a better job hiding it up, or even better, he could have found a way to hold the three kids there until backup arrived.

It's nice to see this again. It's been quite some time since I read the last incarnation. I remember trying to read through the whole thing and trying to find plot problems sometime around the final chapter. The only one I remember was that you never introduced Rudy's dog at the beginning of the story and then it just popped up as one of his pokemon later on, although since I was one ofthe earliest readers I do remember you introduced it in the first edition. Probably for the best that you're completely redoing it. Constant plot manipulation will definitely leave plot holes over time. I also know how college will suck up your time and focus.

I think you should completely remove all your ellipses. I find myself visually skipping over every single one of them, removing the point you're trying to convey by putting them there. They really serve no purpose other than glorified commas and semicolons. When I do mentally incorporate the effect into the inner monologue, I find that the pause is unnecessary and a comma is a better choice. I like dragonfree's opinion of them being cheesy.

If you're going to go off canon and make pokemon training age different, you may as well go the extra mile and make them graduate high school before they can go on a journey. Looking back, I would certainly not be mature enough to handle myself alone when I was ten or twelve. I just graduated from university and I'm probably still not mature enough to be out on my own. Come to think of it, my parents act like kids sometimes. Anyway, twelve is not that much different from ten in terms of maturity. [spoiler]I know you're going for the fact that a certain rocket executive will be 15 when you introduce them, but fifteen is not old enough to help run a business. I don't care if Giovanni himself was the deciding factor, nobody puts a high schooler in an executive position in today's society.[/spoiler]

Something about Spencer's personality seems forced to me. He's just way too carefree and his joking around makes him sound like really corny and unempathetic.

Tyson could be so much more scary. You've set him up from the start to be this really hardened, scary guy that probably enjoys torture, and since he got on the plane you softened him up to where he's telling kids not to leave a crashed plane because they're in the middle of the woods.

A lot of other things that I could have said have been mentioned by dragonfree. She discusses a lot of things that I pick up on, but I don't fully notice in reading or understand how to convey.

Anyway I'm really glad to see this back up again. You do a really good job at conveying what's going on, even if on occasion it seems a little forced. I know that in most cases that's due to piecing together old stuff though, so it's forgivable. I really like your writing style. It flows well and you know when to show and when to tell, and your dialogue's not bad either. All in all, I'm really looking forward to reading this over again; I've forgotten most of the plot anyway.

Whoamg! Hello there! Despite returning from a hiatus myself, I'm always surprised to see other people return from a hiatus as well.

Originally Posted by indigestible_wad

I'm not entirely sure what a license is referring to in this paragraph because you didn't mention it at all before in the paragraph. Are you referring to the fact that she can't go anywhere because her parents won't let her (like earlier in the chapter) or that she doesn't really care about going on the journey (like earlier in the paragraph)?

The former, though I suppose it ought to be clarified.

Originally Posted by indigestible_wad

I feel like the way you set up this paragraph that you should make the sentence in the quotations less discernable, perhaps like "bad...look." You make it sound like she doesn't have very much experience yet and should only be making out the meaning, not the individual words.

Throughout the first few chapters of the story, I try to convey her as having taken a ton of classes on Pokéspeech, though not quite being fluent yet (but still better at it than only being able to translate scattered words). Basically, if a Pokémon is talking slowly and carefully enough, she can understand them decently (though the translations we, as readers, are being given is probably a bit simplified in a way that would be difficult to convey in the text itself, so I’m only saying this for context.) I guess that paragraph made it sound like she was worse than she actually was? In any case, after a few weeks into her journey, and a lot of conversing with Firestorm, she improves enough for me to translate it normally for the rest of the fic.

Originally Posted by indigestible_wad

I tend to agree with Agent Tectonic on the fact that it seems a little weird that a pretty mean team rocket member is okay with keeping her alive after she's outlived her usefulness. I can see them being willing to let Jade go after watching them catch entei, if they tied her up but let her go after they caught entei and told her not to repeat anything. She would probably be too scared to defy the order, and it's not like too many people would believe her. After all, the executive did make that point earlier before Tyson mentioned Jade had been conversing with Striker. (I forgot his name)

Well wait, you said it’s weird for them to be willing to let her go, but then explain a bunch of ways that it would make sense for them to do so, especially since, again, no one would believe her. However, the fact that she saw the inside of the base means that they definitely would not let her go. In other words—they were lying. But I didn’t want Jade to know. I’m not sure how to convey information to the reader that the narrator doesn’t know, however.

Originally Posted by indigestible_wad

If you're going to call the pikachu 'the Pikachu,' then call Razors 'the Scyther.' The fact that you're referring to razors in proper noun form suggests that Jade and we as readers are already familiar with the character, which we are not.

She already knew Razors’s name, though. :S I figured it just simplified the narration a bit.

Originally Posted by indigestible_wad

What does this mean?

A Poké Ball can only be registered to one Pokémon, which is referred to in the fic as marking them. I didn’t know how to explain something like that in the narration, though come to think of it, I think I could drop a small line of Jade remembering this when he says it.

Originally Posted by indigestible_wad

If he has multiple pokemon, wouldn't it make sense for him to send one of them to fend off the typhlosion while the rest are occupied by the pkachu?

I had him send them out there because that was the first point where Typhlosion had done anything, though I could try to move it to earlier in the chapter (which was where I had wanted to put it, but couldn’t figure out how. Cutting some of the unnecessary bits with Jade and Rudy will probably help with it.

Originally Posted by indigestible_wad

From what I've seen of Tyson so far, he is not the kind of person to explain rocket plane secrets and compliment a prisoner after a deadly situation corrects itself. He would without warning try to get the situation back in his control before his opposition can. He's not the super villain monologue type.

Eh you’re right, I’ll modify that. I thought it needed an explanation of how exactly he had corrected the situation, but it really doesn’t. And the dialogue was me forgetting that I had developed him differently this time (in the old version, he bantered with them quite a bit.)

Originally Posted by indigestible_wad

This seems really obvious and he could have done a better job hiding it up, or even better, he could have found a way to hold the three kids there until backup arrived.

I didn’t think he particularly needed to hide it, since he’d been using the GPS to land the plane. Would it make more sense if I’d put in a line earlier about him using the GPS (he’d said he was going to, but I never bothered describing it.) And, well…how could he hold them there—he was definitely not the one in control of the situation. Sure, he could have done a better job stalling them, but at that point, the situation was so hopelessly beyond his control that he panicked.

Originally Posted by indigestible_wad

If you're going to go off canon and make pokemon training age different, you may as well go the extra mile and make them graduate high school before they can go on a journey. Looking back, I would certainly not be mature enough to handle myself alone when I was ten or twelve. I just graduated from university and I'm probably still not mature enough to be out on my own. Come to think of it, my parents act like kids sometimes. Anyway, twelve is not that much different from ten in terms of maturity. Spoiler:

I know you're going for the fact that a certain rocket executive will be 15 when you introduce them, but fifteen is not old enough to help run a business. I don't care if Giovanni himself was the deciding factor, nobody puts a high schooler in an executive position in today's society.

Believe me, I completely and totally see your point. But I’ll attempt to explain my thought process through this. In the past month or two, I’ve actually considered going back and altering the training age again, though was always worried it would just come off as…too arbitrary. I feel like the fact that kids are allowed to train Pokémon is an integral part of the Pokémon World that I honestly wouldn’t feel comfortable changing. And I feel like I’d be changing the feel of the story too drastically without having a bunch of kids be completely in over their heads.

As for your Rocket age comment, which Rocket are you referring to? (sigh, the overabundance of young Rockets in my fic…. ><) Spoiler:- Seriously, no one else read this. I MEAN IT. You will be spoiled, and you will hate it.:

*snip* The person this was intended for has already read it, so I'm cutting this now so no one stumbles across it later.

I know these things don’t change much. I know it’s still going to be unbelievable by the real world’s standards. I’ve always tended to believe that the Pokémon world’s nature of throwing responsibility onto kids in the form of a Pokémon training journey would tend towards having them much more capable of handling themselves alone out in the world, and therefore better at handling things at an earlier age. (Ogod I just graduated college and I have no idea what I’m doing aaaaaaaaaaa.) I’ve always known that I was working with a story concept that inherently required me to force my readers to suspend a lot of disbelief. I only hope that I can find the right balance of elements that can make it just believable enough to work.

Originally Posted by indigestible_wad

Something about Spencer's personality seems forced to me. He's just way too carefree and his joking around makes him sound like really corny and unempathetic.

In the old version he had no personality, but now I’m worried that I’ve gone too far in the opposite direction. I’ve always wanted a character that dealt with stress by joking about it, as a contrast to the constant fear that Jade spends 90% of the rest of the fic in. I’ll try my hand at toning down some of his lines, in any case.

Originally Posted by indigestible_wad

Tyson could be so much more scary. You've set him up from the start to be this really hardened, scary guy that probably enjoys torture, and since he got on the plane you softened him up to where he's telling kids not to leave a crashed plane because they're in the middle of the woods.

Hm, I think the problem there is that when going into writing this part, I already knew he was not going to be the biggest threat, especially since he’s in a ridiculous situation with too many factors outside his control, already afraid of embarrassing himself in front of the higher-ups. I’m already planning on cutting some of the superfluous dialogue that threw off the tone, though I honestly don’t know how to fix the part where he doesn’t know how to convince them not to leave the plane.

Thanks for the crits. I really hope I can manage to improve everything. And I genuinely hope this version comes off as superior to the old one, because I’ve put a lot of effort towards that.

~Chibi~

Last edited by Chibi Pika; 18th May 2012 at 8:30 PM.

Ever wondered what would happen if humans had the power to overthrow the Legendaries? To either use them for their own ends, or eliminate them altogether? One thing is for certain...the balance between human and Legendary is unstable.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8/30/12: CHAPTER 7: “Into the Fire” POSTED!!!
Chapter 8 progress: 9/12 pages

Well wait, you said it’s weird for them to be willing to let her go, but then explain a bunch of ways that it would make sense for them to do so, especially since, again, no one would believe her. However, the fact that she saw the inside of the base means that they definitely would not let her go. In other words—they were lying. But I didn’t want Jade to know. I’m not sure how to convey information to the reader that the narrator doesn’t know, however.

I probably could have said that better. At the time, Tyson had stated that the reason he kept hold of her was because she had seen the mystery man. Then they discussed disposing of her since she had seen the base. Now he's telling her she'll survive if she's useful. I was tying to be hypothetical for the point of the rockets' personality. Now that you've clarified that he's lying, my point is moot.

A Poké Ball can only be registered to one Pokémon, which is referred to in the fic as marking them. I didn’t know how to explain something like that in the narration, though come to think of it, I think I could drop a small line of Jade remembering this when he says it.

I was confused by the sentence since Rudy said he captured Swift, but Rudy wasn't the owner. I think when you mention this, you should make sure to explain that Jade is marked with Swift.

Believe me, I completely and totally see your point. But I’ll attempt to explain my thought process through this. In the past month or two, I’ve actually considered going back and altering the training age again, though was always worried it would just come off as…too arbitrary. I feel like the fact that kids are allowed to train Pokémon is an integral part of the Pokémon World that I honestly wouldn’t feel comfortable changing. And I feel like I’d be changing the feel of the story too drastically without having a bunch of kids be completely in over their heads.

You can be over your head at any age. I think that the oldest someone can be called a kid is 25, depending on how old the speaker is.

As for your Rocket age comment, which Rocket are you referring to? (sigh, the overabundance of young Rockets in my fic…. ><)
I know these things don’t change much. I know it’s still going to be unbelievable by the real world’s standards. I’ve always tended to believe that the Pokémon world’s nature of throwing responsibility onto kids in the form of a Pokémon training journey would tend towards having them much more capable of handling themselves alone out in the world, and therefore better at handling things at an earlier age. (Ogod I just graduated college and I have no idea what I’m doing aaaaaaaaaaa.) I’ve always known that I was working with a story concept that inherently required me to force my readers to suspend a lot of disbelief. I only hope that I can find the right balance of elements that can make it just believable enough to work.

~Chibi~

I really tried to make my spoiler not easy for people to get, but now I see that it was ambiguous enough to confuse you as well. Gah. Anyway, the first one. I still think 12 is way too young. I can see fifteen being possible, since 16 is the emancipation age. Anyway, I don't think it's a huge deal; it's only going to be mentioned in these first few chapters. It'll be out of all our heads by the time two or three more adventures happen.

Only had time to read the first two chapters, unfortunately, but I will certainly be back for the later one - I really enjoyed this! Been meaning to read this for all too long, I've seen you around/heard about your work since I first came to the forum. :3 Delightful! I didn't find the first chapter disjointed at all - having not read the earlier drafts I wouldn't have guessed that it had been revised at all x3 Your writing style flows delightfully, and the plot is really intriguing - it plays upon those elements that I personally find fascinating, the conflict between the 'gods' (who are delightfully fallible and realistic from what I've seen so far) and man, and does it well, which is rare to see. :3 Considering the number of revisions you've done and readers who have already picked through it, I didn't find any grammatical/spelling/etcetera mistakes, but to tell the truth I was too drawn in to look for them. Your first person is wonderful. x3 I found it strangely gender ambiguous at first, although that's probably just me: I initially got the feeling the character was a boy until her name was said. That unfortunately probably says more about my preconceptions than about your writing, although from a feminist slant it's delightful that your character avoids traditional categories ;D *shot*

On chapter two - A little niggle, but probably one limited to just me, but wouldn't such a large organisation due to its emphasis on secrecy have a better policy for keeping witnesses silent then just murder? People going missing would only raise suspicions - threatening them to ensure silence, however, particularly in the case of a young child, would be more plausible? Or is the suggestion of murder just a sign of the inexperience of the driver, an over the top suggestion that mirrors the one he acted on by kidnapping the witness? It just seemed a little anomalous to me, despite the seriousness of the operation she oversaw, particularly given her age, but that's probably a personal observation. :3

And finished - would read the final chapter (trust me I want to) but I have final exams to revise for and this took up a little more time than I'd expected haha!

Very enjoyable overall (if I've repeated this several times it's because I've been adding to this review as I've gone along x3), your characters are engaging, the plot is certainly very exciting, and it was a delightful read! Chapters are well paced, and not at all choppy, you've been able to revise them well. Really nothing left to add, except that I'm dying to read more now. x3

Floating over your rocky spine
The glaciers made you and now you're mine

I really tried to make my spoiler not easy for people to get, but now I see that it was ambiguous enough to confuse you as well. Gah.

It's okay, the ambiguity was appreciated. =)

Originally Posted by chammy76

I didn't know you were continuing this here! I was always following it on DA...I'm going to have to reread the whole thing now, I've totally forgotten what's going on ^^;

Oh, you're only two chapters behind. :P Imagine back when, in the old version of the thread, I'd waltz in after being gone for six months and be all "O hai guys chapter 21 is out now : D"

Originally Posted by katiekitten

Your first person is wonderful. x3 I found it strangely gender ambiguous at first, although that's probably just me: I initially got the feeling the character was a boy until her name was said. That unfortunately probably says more about my preconceptions than about your writing, although from a feminist slant it's delightful that your character avoids traditional categories ;D *shot*

Heh, I think that might actually be caused by me being the writer, since I'm somewhat gender-neutral as a person. The old version was so silly, it just went and shouted in your face, "HAY GUYS JADE IS A TOMBOY." But then I realized that in this new version, since a 1st person character lengthily describing their own appearance is silly, there is no longer any indication of Jade's gender until chapter 2. xP

Originally Posted by katiekitten

On chapter two - A little niggle, but probably one limited to just me, but wouldn't such a large organisation due to its emphasis on secrecy have a better policy for keeping witnesses silent then just murder? People going missing would only raise suspicions - threatening them to ensure silence, however, particularly in the case of a young child, would be more plausible? Or is the suggestion of murder just a sign of the inexperience of the driver, an over the top suggestion that mirrors the one he acted on by kidnapping the witness? It just seemed a little anomalous to me, despite the seriousness of the operation she oversaw, particularly given her age, but that's probably a personal observation. :3

Tyson is most definitely over the top in nearly every way. xD I should probably have his superior snidely mention that you can't just murder everyone who discovers the slightest thing about them, especially something that no one would ever believe (note, however, that as Tyson messed up and brought her in the base (the Viridian central HQ, no less!), at this point they aren't intending to let her go alive. I figure they'd just kill her with a Fire-Pokemon and throw the body out on Route 26 where the Entei incident happened.)

Thanks for the comments, everyone! Chapter 4 is coming very soon. I've had a lot of real-life stuff come up lately (job hunting, finding a new apartment,) and the chapter has turned out longer than I thought, but I still want the total wait to be less than two weeks, so expect it within the next two days. Also, I intend to have artwork for Spencer up before that. So yeah.

~Chibi~

Ever wondered what would happen if humans had the power to overthrow the Legendaries? To either use them for their own ends, or eliminate them altogether? One thing is for certain...the balance between human and Legendary is unstable.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8/30/12: CHAPTER 7: “Into the Fire” POSTED!!!
Chapter 8 progress: 9/12 pages

[FONT="Garamond"]
[SIZE="3"]“If the Legendaries are so superior, then why do the humans speak of them as though they are nothing but pawns…pieces of a plan that must be obtained? These so-called Legendary Pokémon are in danger, that much is certain.”

-Mewtwo

Interesting start. Definitely adds a little flavor, the way it is treated as something that, say, Winston Churchill could have said (all things considered).

A pair of eyes snapped open suddenly, radiating with an eerie cobalt aura and illuminating the inky blackness within the depths of the sea.

The "with" there is extraneous. It could just be "radiating an eerie..."

The story was well known amongst the Order of Legends,

This is at least the second time you've used that phrase, and I adore it. It gives me the feeling of a pokemon pantheon, with the legendaries gathering regularly at some sort of meeting spot and casually discussing the state of affairs. Very mythological feel to it.

Pushing all thoughts from its mind,

Heaven knows I'm guilty of this, too, but that might be a little too colorfully worded. I would just say "Clearing its mind". The way it is now makes me think it's going brain-dead. And if it has no thoughts, what's the narrator doing still talking to me in a line or two about how it is caught up in the joy of flight?

It couldn’t help feeling caught up in the simple joy of flight, for it had not experienced the feeling in quite some time.

I don't know what it is, but this line is significant. It makes me feel for Lugia (? I guess we're not CERTAIN it's Lugia yet) that it has not had an opportunity to fly in so long. Good establishment of a connection.

A loud ringing filled the air, which meant the end of class for the day. I quickly stuffed my books into my backpack, following after my classmates and pretending I hadn’t heard the last-minute homework that we’d been given. It would have been just like any other afternoon, except my head was still filled with rumors from earlier that morning.

Ajia laughed. “Yeah that class is confusing doom when you first start out. It gets better later on, though,” she said.

"Confusing doom"...? There's an odd phrase.

“Yeah…” I replied, my mind wandering back to what had been bothering me most of the day. “So, uh…have you seen Starr? I didn’t even see her at lunch.” I fidgeted a bit, not really sure how to bring up the topic. “Is it really true, that…?” My voice trailed off.

Ajia sighed sympathetically. “I think she didn’t want to talk about it with you ‘cause she knew you’d take it the hardest…”

“What? What does that even—ugh, I’ve got to talk to her before she leaves.”

“She’s right outside, actually,” Ajia pointed out.

I blinked. “Huh? She’s not taking the bus home?”

“No, her mom’s picking her up. If you hurry, you might catch her.”

“Right. I’ll see you on Monday, then!” I exclaimed, immediately taking off through a pair of double doors behind me.

I would have gone with fewer dialogue tags. You didn't use too many, but some were still a bit extraneous. "blinked", "pointed out". I would have dropped those. An astute reader could easily follow the conversation without the reminder of who was speaking. You can trust us!

“Where’re you moving to?” I asked cautiously. I could tell she didn’t want to talk about it, and almost didn’t want to know.

This reads a little tough because it initially seems like Starr didn't want to know. Especially since you used the comma, put an I after it. ", and I almost..."

Her voice was blank as she replied, “Cianwood.” I didn’t even know where that was supposed to be.

Everything felt silent after that. It was like all the commotion going on with the other kids didn’t exist. I couldn’t get my thoughts straight—all of this had come up so fast that I couldn’t figure any of it out.

“It’s not fair!” I suddenly exclaimed. “You only just moved here a month ago. And moving on your birthday? What’s up with that?”

I folded my arms. “Huh. You never really saw your dad very often before…did you?”

She shook her head.

“Still…it’s stupid that your mom won’t tell you why all of this is happening,” I added.

“Yeah…she keeps saying that she wants me and my brother to have a better life that we couldn’t have gotten here, or something like that…she never really explains,” Starr mumbled.

“Hey, that’s right, what does your brother think about all of this? Isn’t he friends with Ajia?”

Starr sighed. “I don’t know, Lexx has been acting weird and not talking to me much lately,” she said with a bit of a scowl.

I love the dialogue...very realistic and childlike, and I simply fawned over the "I don't even know where that is supposed to be" line. Such a good addition! But again...fewer tags! (this is maybe my second biggest writing pet peeve aside from unintentionally inconsistent narration, but I promise not to harp on it any more)

We sat there for some time. It was probably only a few minutes, but it seemed like forever. And then Starr glanced up suddenly, her attention caught by a blue car that had just parked along the curb. She stared at it for a few seconds, then stood to her feet and threw a backpack over her shoulder before walking towards the car heavily. She had only taken a few steps when she paused suddenly and turned to face me one last time.

“Bye.”

YES. Do you see how powerful that "Bye." is just floating by itself with no tag? Very strong line there. (I apparently lied aboyt not talking about it again!)

-So the prologue is quiye interesting; I was not expecting shifting P.O.V., but it's intentional, so I can appreciate it. Nice juxtaposition, too. We have Lugia worrying about the world and ancient prophecies....and then we have some fifth graders worrying about moving apart from each other. And yet, the second concern is portrayed in such a way that it is not only NOT dwarfed by Lugia's more important concern, but also in a way that I actually care more about it! Impressive! Let's see if I have time to read chapter 1 before lunch ends...

Originally Posted by Chibi Pika

A note: In this fic, the Pokémon Training age limit is twelve. I am aware that I’m breaking canon. And while I generally believe it is good to follow canon, I will change things to make certain aspects of the Pokémon world, in my eyes, function better with the rest of my headcanon. And exploring my headcanon is pretty much the entire reason I'm writing this fic

Certain characters need to be a certain number of years older or younger than others. If the training age limit was 10, I’d end up with ridiculously young Team Rocket leaders. Heck, even the way it is now is barely believable..

I'm the last person to complain about this, so I have no problems. You do whatever fits your story!

I sluggishly pedaled upward, still watching him race toward the ramp. And then—wait, what?

Before I had any idea what was going on, a black blur had raced out of nowhere and skidded to a halt right in front of me. I swerved instantly to avoid hitting it, but then—crap, I was heading for a parked car, turn, turn! I spun too far, felt my wheels hit the curb awkwardly, then found myself toppling over into a sprawled heap on the grass.

I LOVE quasi-stream of consciousness first person POV. One of my favorite stories of mine ever uses it, and I think it's so damn entertaining and fun.

Well, that was random. But there was really only one thing that could have done that. Sure enough, I felt heavy paws on my chest immediately afterward. Black fur filled my entire field of vision, and the air was filled with musty, hot breath and uneven panting.

“Ow…get off, Ebony!” I yelled, shoving the dog away. She lumbered off, but sat down less than two feet from me, apparently fighting the urge to jump on me again. With an exasperated sigh, I said, “You’re never gonna get tired of this game, are you?” Sure, she knew who I was, but still felt determined as ever to “protect” her territory and owner—who was now standing next to his bike, cracking up.

“Pfft—shut up, Rudy” I laughed, climbing to my feet and wiping the grass off my baggy shirt and jeans. “How’d Ebony get out this time?” I glanced back at the energetic young dog Pokémon, who was now wagging her short, stubby tail with the apparent hope that she could play with us.

Since the same person is talking--and about the same subject matter (Ebony)--I might not have broken that up into two paragraphs. It confused me at first because I thought it was Rudy talking initially in the second paragraph.

I had to admit he was right. Summer was really the best time for trainers to start their journey, even though you could apply to take the exam at any time during the Pokémon Handling class, so long as you were twelve years old and had passed at least two years of semester-long courses beforehand. Rudy would have gotten his trainer’s license last year if he hadn’t been missing some credits—failing Pokéspeech the first time hadn’t helped much either.

I'm hoping we get an introduction as to what Pokespeech and Pokemon Handling class are. They work as throwaway concepts, but I really want to know more.

“What do you mean ‘if’? Of course I passed, and why the heck would I pick anything other than Charmander?”

“Right,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Because obviously having one Fire Pokémon just isn’t enough. This way you can light even more random crap on fire.” I guess the flame-tailed Charmander would be a perfect match for him, in that case.

More impeccable child-like dialogue, which is impressive because (and I don't know how old you are, but I'm guess late, late teens at the youngest) writing little kids is HARD to do realistically!

We stepped onto the grass and over to the fence where Rudy opened a gate and let her in with Chloe, another puppy Pokémon of his. Chloe wagged her fluffy, cream-colored tail and rubbed her orange-furred nose against the fence, but to no avail. The Growlithe then blinked her large eyes at us before deciding to roughhouse with Ebony. Rudy glanced around the backyard and clapped a hand to his forehead.

It's very intriguing to see the difference between Lugia and these two. Lugia was cognitive and had an actual thought process. These two are very pet-like (which I like; it's how I've handled Vlam and Bree in my story). It's quite a gap in their mental capacities.

I sped down the streets of Viridian City, glancing around at the familiar sights of the town.

Like what? I'm guilty of this to an extent, too, but...show me these sights!

ft gave a low string of chirps. This time they had meaning, and I had taken enough classes on Pokémon language to understand his words as, “*It’s bad…you should see.*”

I think Cracked.com calls this Lassie Syndrome, where two species can understand each other perfectly, even though neither speaks the other's language. It is kind of weird, and I'm sure almost all pokemon fiction has it, so I'm not calling you out on it. I just think it's funny because it reminded me of that article.

The name did seem…familiar. Faint memories of the news surfaced at the back of my mind, but they were obscured by time and the fact that, well, I didn’t really pay attention to those things when I was a kid. “Sort of…why?” I responded.

Good observation. I might have been especially oblivios, but I was 8 or 9 years old when the Berlin Wall came down, and I remember not know until I was 20 that it even happened in my lifetime. Kids don't pay attention to that stuff.

He pulled out a red and white sphere and pushed a button on it, causing it to enlarge and open. In an instant, a flash of white light burst forth from inside it and began to take the form of a huge dragon, upright and majestic. Shiny, flaming orange-colored scales covered most of its thickly muscled body, save for a massive pair of blue wings. I widened my eyes—it was a Charizard, the fully evolved form of Charmander. This was the first time I had seen one in person.

He replaced the Poké Ball and climbed up onto the dragon’s back. It flexed its wings and outstretched them, flapping against the air and sending rushes of wind into my face. I held my hair against my head and watched as the reptile ascended into the sky.

“I’ll see ya,” the trainer said, soaring out of sight.

What...an odd scene, altogether. Who was the man (Lance?)? Why was he here just watching Team Rocket? What did the Charmander have to do with anything? I'm very perplexed by all this, because it's just all so oddly mysterious.

“Er, later,” I said more to myself than him, wondering how and why I’d see him later. I looked at the small card he had given me and read.

If you have received this card, it is because you have been recognized as either a beginning trainer with the potential for skill, or an ambitious young trainer willing to face danger for the sake of stopping Team Rocket. If you are serious about joining a rebellion against the Rockets, then meet in Vermilion City prior to the following date for further instruction. The cruise ship, S.S. Anne departs on July 7.

This seems so unusual. I have to assume I'd believe it is a trap, some means to ferret out people who'd want to oppose Team Rocket, put them on a boat, and then explode them or something.

Last edited by Sid87; 23rd May 2012 at 5:39 PM.
Reason: double-post

Serebii FanFiction 2014 AwardsCo-Winner, Most Heartbreaking Story (Brothers' Bond)Co-Winner, Best Trainer Story (Brothers' Bond)Winner, Most Frightening Scene (Tales From The PokeDex)

I’ve always meant to read this – literally, it’s been something like five-six years – and finally doing so is kind of bringing me back to the old days when I was still a bright-eyed newbie and all that. I even realized that I had started reading this once upon a time – as Jade arrived at the clearing, I vaguely knew that she was going to encounter a legendary Pokemon there. XD That said, I’ve only read up to Chapter 1 and I dislike reviewing when I haven’t read the entire story, but I fear putting it off and never getting back to it.

With all that said, I really haven’t got a whole lot of general things to say. XD I feel like this is very standard fare from when I was younger, like this is something I’ve read a fair number of times (I likely have seen the prologue in multiple versions) and it feels oddly nostalgic, which is weird since I’ve never gotten much into your fic or even really commented on it to my knowledge. This is weird. But let's get to it!

The first scene of the prologue, like I said, felt pretty standard. A legendary Pokemon is reflecting on legendary Pokemon stuff, then things get suddenly urgent and it shoots up into the air. You probably could have gotten away with a little more flowery description here – Lugia is awesome, after all, and this is just a good place to show off some fun writing. With the second scene, I have to say it didn’t quite feel like a nine-year-old all the time. I feel like most nine-year-olds are more likely to say “Kay, bye!” than “Right. I’ll see you on Monday, then!” Looking back, I can’t really pinpoint any other moments – her reactions, while simple, seem appropriate enough. Again, I think you can be a little more playful with your writing here since you’re dealing with little kids.

The first chapter also looked pretty fine. While I don’t feel you take us very deep into Jade’s psyche, we do get to learn enough about her and what she’s doing these days, where her friends are at and so on, which is quite important. I have to agree with Dragonfree about finding it strange that some guy just randomly told Jade everything, including the Giovanni bit, which seems like it would be pretty unbelievable. I imagine that he’s have control of the media, or at least find plenty of ways to make him look like this great guy to really mask what he does. Anyhow, his utter trust in her is really something, and I’m also surprised that this news isn’t more amazing or scary to her – I feel like knowing that a criminal organization has the power to take over the region would kind of rock your world.

I am also obliged to mention that don’t you think finding and taking in a cute little Charmander is a little overdone?. I’m sure it’s a revision thing, and don’t worry about it – I get it, I just was obligated to mention it. XD That said, I kind of completely forgot she was holding it for the entire rest of the chapter - throwing in references to it, like having it stir in her arms, or it starting to feel heavy at some point can help. It feels more like a prop than a living creature in this chapter.

And now it’s nitpicking time!

Spoiler:- Nitpicky:

Prologue:

The creature shot up from the ocean trench like a silver torpedo, the water slowly growing lighter as it rushed for the surface.

You can mention other changes here, like difference in pressure or the water Pokemon that scatter as Lugia shoots up.

It couldn’t help feeling caught up in the simple joy of flight, for it had not experienced the feeling in quite some time.

Show don’t tell – emphasize that it’s been some time since Lugia's flown through things such as Lugia stretching, enjoying the air in its lungs, between its feathers and so on.

Everything felt silent after that. It was like all the commotion going on with the other kids didn’t exist.

There’s a bit of a dissonance in showing and telling when you show a character notice something and then have them say they don’t notice it. They noticed it if they’re mentioning it, so just...don't mention it. XD

She looked like she wanted to tell me something else, but then decided not to and stayed quiet.

Since this is first person limited, I’d take out the “then decided not to” so that you only describe what Jade sees.

She stared at it for a few seconds, then stood to her feet and threw a backpack over her shoulder

What does it mean to walk “heavily”? I can imagine it, but I’d like to see it described – is she hunched over, lumbering, lurching? You use this adverb again in Chapter 1, I believe.

Chapter 1:

but then—crap, I was heading for a parked car, turn, turn!

This kind of came as a shock. I imagined they were in a grassy park or something, not on the street. I’d find a way to throw in some description earlier to show where they are so the car doesn't seem to come out of nowhere.

And while I couldn’t deny that I’d been excited when I’d opened the results envelope to see a passing grade the day before…it didn’t mean much if I wasn’t allowed to leave on a Pokémon Journey.

Ellipses aren’t necessary here – you can make it a comma.

I caught sight of an aerial figure passing over the trees above me.

“Aerial” doesn’t really describe in any way what this figure might look like – all it really means is that the figure is related to the air or in the air, which we know. “Bird-like” should do fine here.

One moment we were within the thick of the forest, and the next, there was nothing but ravaged ground and the charred remains of tree trunks. In fact, it didn’t look at though the area had burned to the ground, but rather had been incinerated instantly.

Describe “ravaged” – I assume everything’s been burn to the ground, the grass is blackened, maybe ashes litter the ground. Also, “at” should be “as.”

I pulled the burnt remains away from it and slowly wiped the soot off the lizard, awkwardly attempting to avoid harming its blistered skin any further.

So the Charmander doesn’t react to some human touching its tender skin? Doesn't flinch or look at her or anything? What does it feel like – is its body burning hot or vaguely warm, are its scales sharp or is its skin smooth and soft? What does the soot feel like? These kinds of details make scenes that much more visceral and feel real. Touch is an important sense – don’t forget it!

A brilliant flash of fire tore across the mountainside before stopping suddenly in the middle of the clearing and unleashing a blazing heat wave outward from itself.

You can stop at “outward” – the “from itself” goes without saying.

Its face was, in short, amazing—rimmed by brightly colored crests of red along the side, blue over the muzzle, and a crown of yellow over its eyes.

I always thought it was more of a grey than blue, and in my opinion, calling it a crown of gold sounds a bit more impressive than yellow, but that’s an authorial decision.

A large group of Pokémon charged forward from behind the vehicles, unleashing torrents of water at their target. Entei stood its ground, but was noticeably affected by their assault.

Maybe throwing in some Pokemon Jade recognizes might add a bit here, and also describe the water actually hitting Entei and Entei’s reaction – what does “noticeably” mean? How is Entei acting and reacting? Does it ever roar? In fury, in pain?

A long time ago you probably heard about all kinds of raids on cities, Pokémon deaths, and other stuff.

I don't really have much to add. Don't be afraid to describe and get visceral, especially by using as many of the five senses as possible whenever possible. Don't allow your reader to forget that the air is filled with smoke or that there is a dying Charmander in your main character's arms! Those are the kinds of details that can really draw a reader in if you describe them well.

No promises, but I definitely would like to keep reading (for once in my life)! Keep it up! :>

I would have gone with fewer dialogue tags. You didn't use too many, but some were still a bit extraneous. "blinked", "pointed out". I would have dropped those. An astute reader could easily follow the conversation without the reminder of who was speaking. You can trust us!

Hm, that's interesting, especially since that particular exchange had a lower percentage of tags than usual. I can see how "pointed out" is a bit extraneous given the line, though. In general, I don't like omitting more than two tags in a row because then I become conscious of the fact that I'm not describing how things are being said. But I'm sure that some of them can be extraneous, so I'll keep an eye out for that.

Originally Posted by Sid87

-So the prologue is quiye interesting; I was not expecting shifting P.O.V., but it's intentional, so I can appreciate it. Nice juxtaposition, too. We have Lugia worrying about the world and ancient prophecies….and then we have some fifth graders worrying about moving apart from each other. And yet, the second concern is portrayed in such a way that it is not only NOT dwarfed by Lugia's more important concern, but also in a way that I actually care more about it! Impressive! Let's see if I have time to read chapter 1 before lunch ends…

I am SO GLAD you took note of that, because that was really what I was going for, especially since my prologue required two sections (the plot stuff with Lugia was important, but the Jade/Ajia/Starr interactions were crucial character backstory.)

Originally Posted by Sid87

Since the same person is talking--and about the same subject matter (Ebony)--I might not have broken that up into two paragraphs. It confused me at first because I thought it was Rudy talking initially in the second paragraph.

Actually, that's funny because when reviewing your story, I was tempted to criticize the opposite (having many pieces of dialogue all in one paragraph felt like it kind of weighed the paragraphs down.) but decided not to since I realized it was a personal preference thing. I generally don't like putting more than two pieces of dialgoue in the same paragraph, particularly if they're addressed to different characters (Ebony in the first, Rudy in the second.)

Originally Posted by Sid87

More impeccable child-like dialogue, which is impressive because (and I don't know how old you are, but I'm guess late, late teens at the youngest) writing little kids is HARD to do realistically!

Heh, I think it's because I've been writing this incarnation of these characters since I was their age. Fourteen was just when I was starting to become passably decent as a writer, and that was when the characters first started to develop into what they are today.

Originally Posted by Sid87

It's very intriguing to see the difference between Lugia and these two. Lugia was cognitive and had an actual thought process. These two are very pet-like (which I like; it's how I've handled Vlam and Bree in my story). It's quite a gap in their mental capacities.

Ah, interesting that you noticed that, but unfortunately it's a one-off thing. Those two are just very young and kind of goofballs. xP Later on in the story, the Pokemon tend to be more vocal (and Jade can understand Pokespeech), so sadly the effect given here is infrequent.

Originally Posted by Sid87

All right, I could not make it very far in before lunch ended, but I do want to post what I got so far, and I get into the rest of it later on. Sorry for not being able to finish up right now!

Quite alright, I understand the feeling. I'll keep an eye on that post so any edits you make don't go unnoticed.

Originally Posted by Psychic

I’ve always meant to read this – literally, it’s been something like five-six years – and finally doing so is kind of bringing me back to the old days when I was still a bright-eyed newbie and all that.

You know, I just realized something--I really love it when I see other people mention the fact that I've been posting this fic on this forum for stupidly long amounts of time. You'd think I'd be embarrassed of it, or try to gloss over the fact that I'm still writing this all these years later, but I just feel inexplicably happy when I see other people mention it (maybe the fact that I'm not the only person in that situation has empowered me or something.)

Originally Posted by Psychic

That said, I’ve only read up to Chapter 1 and I dislike reviewing when I haven’t read the entire story, but I fear putting it off and never getting back to it.

Bwaha, don't worry, I know the feeling. xD;

Originally Posted by Psychic

I feel like most nine-year-olds are more likely to say “Kay, bye!” than “Right. I’ll see you on Monday, then!” Looking back, I can’t really pinpoint any other moments – her reactions, while simple, seem appropriate enough. Again, I think you can be a little more playful with your writing here since you’re dealing with little kids.

You know, funnily enough, I was actually just looking at that line and feeling tempted to alter it earlier yesterday. I feel like I’m getting closer to capturing the childishness in the prologue (especially after Dragonfree’s review), but not quite there yet.

Originally Posted by Psychic

The first chapter also looked pretty fine. While I don’t feel you take us very deep into Jade’s psyche, we do get to learn enough about her and what she’s doing these days, where her friends are at and so on, which is quite important. I have to agree with Dragonfree about finding it strange that some guy just randomly told Jade everything, including the Giovanni bit, which seems like it would be pretty unbelievable. I imagine that he’s have control of the media, or at least find plenty of ways to make him look like this great guy to really mask what he does. Anyhow, his utter trust in her is really something, and I’m also surprised that this news isn’t more amazing or scary to her – I feel like knowing that a criminal organization has the power to take over the region would kind of rock your world.

I'm actually a bit surprised both you and Dragonfree interpreted that scene as Stalker trusting her, which is pretty much the exact opposite of how I thought most people would see it (as in, I figured everyone would be all "She shouldn't trust him! He's manipulating her, aaahhh!" But maybe my old readers were a bit overzealous with the plot theories.) When you say the Giovanni bit, at first I thought you meant unbelievable as in she shouldn't have believed him, which actually is a valid point and I could have standed to make Jade more skeptical, given Giovanni's immaculate public appearance (though it's important that later on in the story she greatly regrets her naivety here.) But then you go on to bring up his trust in her, and so then I'm confused as to which point you're making.

Actually, I was going to leave this out until his next appearance, but there is something I've been considering—the next time she sees him, he is wearing a mask and cloak, and explains that he wore that when he was seeking out trainers to "interview" for his team, but hadn't particularly been expecting to find any recruits that day and so was unprepared. That doesn't totally fit his character, though, so I was going to ask everyone if I should edit the mask into chapter 1 as well. (Except…then Jade is following around a masked guy she can't even see the face of, which brings up obvious problems on its own.)

Originally Posted by Psychic

I am also obliged to mention that don’t you think finding and taking in a cute little Charmander is a little overdone?. I’m sure it’s a revision thing, and don’t worry about it – I get it, I just was obligated to mention it. XD

Oh, believe me, I know. xD;;; This is one of those silly things from ten years ago that I'm stuck with now. (ask Dragonfree, she can tell you how annoying those situations are.) I will not attempt to defend it or say that writing this fic for ten years gives me immunity to any relics of absurdity it still features; I'm just trying take those old and silly concepts and write them as best as I can. (Thankfully, they get fewer as the fic goes on.)

For once, I don't actually feel the need to respond to any of the nitpicks. Usually there are at least a couple of things I try to defend or explain my point of view on, but here I pretty much agree with everything. I'm actually very motivated now to go back and add more flavor to my descriptions—
Silverwing: OH NO! We have a Code 3, REVISION URGE! ABORT THREAD!!!
<_<; …but I will not. I can wait until after posting chapter 4 to fix everything up nice. (Chapter 5 was mostly revised up to Revision 11 standards during last summer, so I won't end up delaying it by doing this.)
Silverwing: Aww. You have too many readers now, I was trying to thin them out.

Speaking of which, holy crap I have a lot of readers, thank you all so much for commenting!!! :'D Really guys, it means a lot to me that you're enjoying it, since I've spent such a large part of my life writing it, and I love it to death, so being able to share it with you all it a great feeling.

Also, I am sorry that I don't have the chapter out yet! It's way longer than it was supposed to be, but there are a lot of loose threads that need to be tied up before I can charge into the next arc of the story. Tomorrow, I promise! (I would work on it today, but I really need to get back to animating things for the internet to love so the bronies can pay my rent. ...You read that right.)

In the meantime, have some Spencer art! Zoo wee mama! Spoiler:- Spencer:

Next chapter will have art of a new character! Don't wanna spoil who it is, though.

~Chibi~

Ever wondered what would happen if humans had the power to overthrow the Legendaries? To either use them for their own ends, or eliminate them altogether? One thing is for certain...the balance between human and Legendary is unstable.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8/30/12: CHAPTER 7: “Into the Fire” POSTED!!!
Chapter 8 progress: 9/12 pages

My only hope was to reach my bike—nothing was more important than that. If I managed to, then I could make it to town before they caught me and then lose them on the side streets. Just that tiny bit of hope was enough for me, but was I too far away?

It's very childlike to imagine Jade could escape a gang on vehicles by getting to a bicycle, so good job presenting that immature thought process. Like I said: you do youngsters very well.

“Shut the hell up if you want to live. We’re not supposed to have any witnesses, but you might get off the hook if you just keep quiet,” the driver muttered, climbing back into the front seat and driving off.

This feels a little...forced. The first line seems like a generic supervillain throwaway line, and the second is just an out to let the reader know "don't worry, they won't kill Jade".

After some time, I pulled myself up to look out the window again. We had just passed the outskirts of Viridian, now heading into the forests to the east of the city. And then I noticed that Swift was still flapping his wings quickly to follow the jeep, calling out to me—it was almost a painful sight. Upon seeing that I was watching him, he soared downward to fly alongside the window, apparently unwilling to leave.

“Just go,” I mumbled, though he couldn’t hear me. “There’s nothing you can do…”

“Leave it,” he said. “It’s just a Pidgey. Doesn’t matter if it belongs to a captive.”

This also seems a bit generic. The bad guys are just giving the readers outs right when we should be getting worried. It feels almost like you don't want the reader to get TOO concerned.

I leaned forward to see out the back seat window and watched as he leaned over and lifted up a small hatch in the grass.

Too many uses of "leaned" in rapid succession.

And so I was left alone in the jeep. Well, not quite alone, as I quickly realized—the Charmander was still here, after all. I looked down at where I had set it next to me. A tiny flare flickered at the end of its tail, so it was at least still alive, at least. It probably wouldn’t survive much longer though. That fact seemed to make the already bleak situation even worse somehow.

That's better. Do I honestly think the Charmander is going to die? Not really. But at least I wasn't essentially told this time that everything would be okay. You let the reader start worry...and this time you left us with our worry.

“Of course no one ever feels like telling me a damn thing about the mission status,” the higher-ranked Rocket snapped. “And what the hell made you think it would be a good idea to grab some random girl who happened to see it? Sure, she reports some poaching of a Legendary Pokémon, big deal. No one would have any idea that it was us. But now she sure as hell knows too much. Honestly, Tyson, I don’t even know why I—”

Am I alone in not having realized Jade was a girl before this? LOL. I must have missed that. Accursed unisex names!

“I heard he was a part of the revolt.”

Yet another pause. This time the other Rocket seemed at least slightly intrigued. “So he might know more about us than we figured… But how many others left us that day? Have any of them accomplished much against us? I don’t see how this is any—”

Hello...what is this tasty morsel of a subplot? The only thing I'd have changed is I'd have cut the superior off even sooner to leave the reader with another question or two. "So he might know more about--" or "But how many others--" At those points, you see? But still....now I have questions, and that's fun.

“Well, if you’re convinced that she knows anything, it could be useful…but I don’t have time to question her, and I know none of the other Admins do.” Rather unexpectedly, he laughed. “I know, this is perfect—most of the head Executives are at the secondary headquarters right now. Stick the girl on the transport jet; let them deal with what to do with her.” With that, he walked off to discuss things with some of the other Rockets.

This seems like two characters just talking about things that each already knows. And wasn't the superior dismissive of the idea that there is anything for the girl to know, just, like, 5 seconds ago?

“So….” he said, flipping through it and pulling out my school ID, “Jade Arenesa, fourteen years old. I’ll be sure to get that on file.

At FIRST, I was going to be critical of that line, too (as it initially read as the Rocket basically saying "okay, readers...she's going to get free, but we'll still have this info so we can further the plot", but it actually reads less like that if you think about how the driver guy said she might be let go, in which case, this is a clever, subtle threat. "We might even let you go, but you better know we'll know who and where you and your family are at all times." In that context, it's a nice, powerful, quiet line.

Spencer stepped aside revealing a rather disgruntled Rudy standing in the cargo bay.

Hmmm. Rudy, Spencer, Jade? Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald. Is that intentional? Because it is immediately what I thought of; each of their names correlates to one of those games, either by sounding the same, looking the same, or having similar meanings. Not sure it MEANS anything, but it's a neat little Easter Egg. Or I'm imagining things that aren't there.

I didn’t really mind—just being free was enough. Really, just them being there was enough to make the entire situation feel better somehow. I wasn’t alone in this; with three of us there was no way we wouldn’t find some way out.

Nice childlike naivete. Jade was just told that Team Rocket controls virtually everything, but not that her two other kid friends are here, everything is fine!

It stared, apparently confused at my confusion. “*Yes…*” it said slowly, in a tone suggesting that it found the question to be very strange.

Oh, you weren't kidding about the Pokemon eventually just talking.

“Yeah, yeah! Just think—these could be like, super-powerful mutant Pokémon. If we used them to fight the Rockets, we’d be able to get out of this for sure!” Rudy said excitedly.

Yoy. This kid's a brat. I kind of can't wait for him to get his comeuppance. Is that bad of me?

Tyson stared at us in a sort of stupefied rage before turning his gaze on the experimental Pikachu and clenching his teeth. He then pulled one of the black Poké Balls from his belt and opened it. The flash of light from within took the form of a huge green mantis with an exoskeleton that was plated like armor. Its blank, pupil-less eyes flared mindlessly from a vaguely reptilian head. It flashed its impressive scythe-lined arms, seemingly cutting the very air. The Pikachu glared at the Scyther, its eyes wide with what looked like a combination of anger and dread.

“Thought you’d play with the hybrids did you?” Tyson asked, sneering. “Then have fun facing the strongest of them. Razors, attack!”

The three of us sat there, frozen in horror as the blade-armed nightmare of a Pokémon shot toward us, too fast to even see.

What could make a hybrid Scyther, I wonder? Can't wait to see.

Serebii FanFiction 2014 AwardsCo-Winner, Most Heartbreaking Story (Brothers' Bond)Co-Winner, Best Trainer Story (Brothers' Bond)Winner, Most Frightening Scene (Tales From The PokeDex)

This feels a little...forced. The first line seems like a generic supervillain throwaway line, and the second is just an out to let the reader know "don't worry, they won't kill Jade".

Oh wow...see this is why reviews are so helpful. That line is from Revision SIX. Every time I've rewritten the chapter, it's just sort of stayed there because it never occurred to me to fix it. I tend to just get used to a lot of the old bad things, to the point where I don't even notice them anymore, until someone points them out, and them I'm like, "Ogod why didn't I ever fix that."

Originally Posted by Sid87

Am I alone in not having realized Jade was a girl before this? LOL. I must have missed that. Accursed unisex names!

No, you're not alone. It occurred to me recently that there really is no other indication before that line. I couldn't think of how to do it, given the first person (and thought it would actually be a bit amusing to play with people's expectations.)

Originally Posted by Sid87

This seems like two characters just talking about things that each already knows. And wasn't the superior dismissive of the idea that there is anything for the girl to know, just, like, 5 seconds ago?

Huh, I wouldn't say he was telling Tyson things he already knew. And the way I figured it, he knew that if she'd seen someone apparently involved in the so-called revolt, it would be unwise to just dismiss it, even if he himself found it to be waste of time. So he decided to make sure that someone else could waste their time instead. xP

Originally Posted by Sid87

Hmmm. Rudy, Spencer, Jade? Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald. Is that intentional? Because it is immediately what I thought of; each of their names correlates to one of those games, either by sounding the same, looking the same, or having similar meanings. Not sure it MEANS anything, but it's a neat little Easter Egg. Or I'm imagining things that aren't there.

Huh, that's a funny coincidence. I thought their names seemed to flow together unusually well. Course, those names were made for those characters by three different people, so it is just a coincidence.

Originally Posted by Sid87

Nice childlike naivete. Jade was just told that Team Rocket controls virtually everything, but not that her two other kid friends are here, everything is fine!

I am SO GLAD you keep picking up on these bits. Jade is indeed hopelessly naive during this first arc, and I really wanted to make sure she came off as it, so it's great to have someone take notice.

Originally Posted by Sid87

Yoy. This kid's a brat. I kind of can't wait for him to get his comeuppance. Is that bad of me?

Haha, don't worry, he will. Rudy's development arc is a bit slower than Jade's since he's not the main character, but he definitely gets his eventually.

~Chibi~

Ever wondered what would happen if humans had the power to overthrow the Legendaries? To either use them for their own ends, or eliminate them altogether? One thing is for certain...the balance between human and Legendary is unstable.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8/30/12: CHAPTER 7: “Into the Fire” POSTED!!!
Chapter 8 progress: 9/12 pages